


The Shadow of Violence

by homsantoft (tofsla)



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Artificial Intelligence, Canon-Typical Violence, Con Artists, Dalish/Skinner (Background), Identity Issues, M/M, Memory Alteration, Personhood, Sera/Dagna (Background), Space Archaeology, mutual distrust, transactional sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-21
Updated: 2016-09-21
Packaged: 2018-08-12 19:42:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 43,641
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7946677
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tofsla/pseuds/homsantoft
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dorian Pavus, looking for a way to escape his family, meets the Iron Bull, looking for information. Each has something the other wants, and their attempts to make use of each other lead them all across Tevinter Territory and into another kind of danger altogether. At the same time, both of them struggle with pasts they can only partly remember. Who or what are they, and what do they want to be?</p><p>A sci-fi romance, with Venatori interruptions.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Streets of Minrathous

**Author's Note:**

> My Adoribull Minibang piece for this year!
> 
> This story owes a considerable debt to several of my favourite sci-fi works: Blade Runner, Ancillary Justice, Mass Effect. A loving mess of influences and references, although familiarity with the stories isn't necessary.
> 
> Thanks to Val for talking personhood and sci-fi with me; Katie, James & Jared, who pushed me to the finish line; to June & to Jared for editing; & to everyone else who wrote with me, commented on drafts, & offered enthusiasm.
> 
>  
> 
> [Don't miss the accompanying art by the wonderful Shae_C!](http://shae-c-art.tumblr.com/post/150736095631/adoribull-minibang-artwork-for-homsantofts)
> 
>  
> 
> A soundtrack to accompany the story [can be found here](http://homsantoft.tumblr.com/post/150715212462/are-we-people-are-we-things-a-mix-for-dorian-and).
> 
> ♥ 
> 
> Enjoy!

_Do you remember, Dorian? Father asked him. That day by the lake. You scared us terribly._

_It was in the study that they sat, affecting a state of quiet conversation. Propriety. How laughable._

_Still: there. The richly furnished study with its imported oak panelling, antique, from when its production was still permitted. Because the genuine article was always of greater value than the reproduction, because there would be no printed wood and no synthetic servants and even the dog must be—_

_Authentic. Such stock set by authenticity._

_I remember. Is there a point to this?_

_Father shook his head, only._

_Hazy red sunlight through the great wall of windows stained the pages of the books where they lay open upon the desk. Old-fashioned. Beautiful things, impractical. Dorian's library took another form entirely, but Father had his eccentricities, had the money to indulge them._

_Humour an aging man, he said. What is your first memory, then? The very beginning. So many of my earliest are lost to me now. But I find the few I keep gain clarity. Clarity of a constructed sort, I must suppose. And yet—_

_And yet I do wonder. What are we, in the end? Is it only the sum of our memories, no matter their veracity?_

_What would you say?_

_To sit with Father had always had a weight of pedagogy, although this fact had lost its charm some years ago. But still, there was no reason not to consider the matter, while one was not at liberty to depart. While one was quite bored out of one's mind._

_And so, Dorian thought—_

_He thought—_

 

 

 

It rains and rains, heavy between the high buildings, dirty. The sky becomes a thin strip of grey, only a shade lighter than the concrete framing it. 

Narrow streets become streams, clogged storm drains overflowing. It soaks through the Iron Bull's jacket, seeps into his boots. The shadow and rumble of shuttles overhead is almost lost in the hissing roar of water on metal.

‹‹ Should've taken a cab, boss, ›› Krem says in the Iron Bull's head. ‹‹ Yeah, you're about there now, 25th Main. Yeah, the Fereldan place. No updates. ››

The Iron Bull signals acknowledgement. 

And here's the place, and he plunges through the open door, into hot dimly-lit smoke, laughter, the smell of stale alcohol. A moment of anxiety at the darkness of the space, the limited angle of his vision. No way to see what's at his back. He would've been able to, once. Hissrad unit, three segments together for unfamiliar territory.

But it's just him, disconnected. He doesn't reach for bodies that don't exist any more, usually.

The man, the mark, sits in the darkest corner of the place and stands out all the same. He smokes, long slow drags on a thin cigarette. Dark clothes, soft-looking jacket cut asymmetrically; high boots, leather. This year's fashion in the upper city. Real leather? 

Could be.

He's detailed in snaking gold.

The Iron Bull's shoes stick lightly to the floor as he walks.

Thudding music. Someone shrieks laughter. This place is as lower city as it comes in its mess of diaspora and disadvantage, and it's queer to boot. In the chaos of colours, the guy he's here for is a single somber point. A mourner at a carnival.

A woman bends to speak to him. Bright yellow nails matching her leggings, her hair a choppy blonde mess. Loose top with a bee motif. 

Never quiet with Sera around. 

The man shakes his head.

"Come on, a drink. That's all. Not interested in your bits."

The man shakes his head again. His words, lower, are lost under the bass. Sera makes an obscene gesture, apparently in illustration of a point. The man raises his own hand, waves cigarette smoke at her.

He has beautiful hands, the Iron Bull can see now, up close. Beautiful by the rules of the upper city, long tapered fingers, very slightly pronounced knuckles. A study in upper city beauty all round, really. Full lips and delicately curled moustache. Skin that shade of bronze-toned brown that's one sort of aristocratic perfection by Tevinter standards—Qarinus and the surrounding systems, particularly, which might be a thing to watch out for. A moderate physicality to cover with extravagant style, although he's not looking all that extravagant right now.

Still, his eyes are dark-rimmed, the liner artfully smudged. Sharp highlighting on his cheekbones, a delicate little beauty mark under his eye that must be a chosen piece of vanity, not painted but modified. 

All taken, still pretty damn conspicuous.

Probably he's trying to be. There's something defiant there. Unwashed hair, yesterday's shirt under his pretty jacket, and all the same his face is perfect and his shoulders are squared.

"How about a drink from me instead," the Iron Bull says. "You look like you need one."

"Too sodding fancy to bother," Sera says, mouth twisting in an admission of defeat, ceding the mark even before the man has looked up. Before they've both had the chance to note the slight widening of his eyes at the sight of the Iron Bull morphing into a sharp sort of interest and finally a studied expression of nonchalance.

Sera likes to hit them quick, to make a nuisance of herself and run for it. She isn't one for a long game; isn't even much of a con artist, except incidentally. All that's more the Iron Bull's style. 

This one is definitely a long game in the making. 

That works. It's something to do. Intelligence-gathering for nobody.

The man says, "Yes. Yes, I think so."

Definitely something calculating there, again, for an instant.

The Iron Bull raises an eyebrow at Sera, and grins at the man, and says, "What'll it be?"

"Oh," the man says. "The cheapest, most synthetic-tasting horror they have should do it. Call me Dorian."

"The Iron Bull," the Iron Bull says.

"You're, what, Vashoth?" Real interest. Eyes flicking to the horns, to the breadth of his shoulders.

"Tal," the Iron Bull says, although no part of this is strictly correct. A Qunari weapon is not in itself Qunari, and so it cannot be Tal-Vashoth. These things imply independent thought. He has not made the choices to exist or to die that Qunari and Tal-Vashoth make. He simply is. A badly broken collection of synthetic components and modified memories in a nominally organic body, running a short loop of commands with nobody left to cancel them. Identify, exploit, report. 

His programming is designed to allow certain creative untruths. It is necessary. Remains a part of his routine, extracting information that the Qun might use, although the Qun isn't listening.

"Hm," Dorian says. "Do you live here?"

The Iron Bull shrugs. "Live everywhere, sooner or later."

Dorian's gaze flickers and settles. "A drink, then, to itinerant lifestyles."

"I'll bring the bottle," the Iron Bull says.

"A fine idea," Dorian says. "If I am to be murdered in my bed, I should prefer to be too drunk to know it."

"You even have a bed down here?" the Iron Bull asks.

"Oh, no," Dorian says. Looks up at him through his lashes, quirks his lips. "But I should think I could find one."

Rich kids slumming it. That's what the Iron Bull is out after, that's what he looks for—the obnoxiously wealthy, the obnoxiously privileged. Seems like the lead was good. If this guy's into Vashoth, of course he's in the lower city. If he's gay, of course he'd be here in particular. Looking to get into trouble, but not _too_ much trouble.

But whatever part of the Iron Bull's mind is devoted to working through inconsistencies is kicking up a fuss. 

Something's off.

Well, all the more reason to stick around.

 

 

The dim light smudges the faces of the people around them, makes the world indistinct. The Iron Bull lets it stay that way, no pressing reason to gain a clarity which stretches beyond the two of them, Dorian's face, the tap of his delicately rounded nails on the edge of the table. 

The bottle is half empty.

They have spoken no confidences. A play of flirting, back and forth. Dorian turning his body towards the Iron Bull, tilting his head to encourage the Iron Bull's attention towards the line of his throat.

Tension beneath it all. The tightness of fingers around a cigarette. Dorian throws his drink back a little too fast. 

No, they don't trust each other. Why should they?

Dorian says, "I would say your place or mine, but under the circumstances—"

"Mine's fine," the Iron Bull says. "Or we could get a room. There's a place on the next block."

A slight easing of tension. Dorian really was entirely ready to go back to some stranger's apartment, but he's glad not to have to. Some shred of self-preservation left in there, some acknowledgement of the danger of the game he's playing. He doesn't need this, doesn't need a sordid fuck in a hotel that charges by the hour. Practically? Maybe, but probably not. Not emotionally, definitely. But still: he wants it.

Core programming: 

If it's a target, you give them what they want.

"A room," Dorian says. Taps ash from his cigarette, stubs it viciously out after a final quick drag. "Shall we?"

"Hey, if you're sure," the Iron Bull says. 

"To be clear," Dorian says, "I don't trust you and I don't pretend to know you. If you're worried about false pretenses, I assure you I don't much mind who you are. I'd like to fuck someone, and I'd like to sleep in a bed."

What is the subtext of Dorian's recklessness? The Iron Bull can't say, doesn't have all the pieces. But he wants things from Dorian, and he has a feeling Dorian wants something from him beyond the obvious. That moment of interest about his heritage. Asking where he lived.

It'll do for a start. 

The Iron Bull updates Krem with a quick silent message, address, expected timeframes. Sometimes they use a phone when it's not sensitive shit, but it's for show, it makes people feel easier. The movements of fingers that indicate the transmission of silent data are minute, but anyone suspicious-minded is likely to notice them, at least in decent lighting. Down here you're not meant to be as thoroughly wired up as he is. Dorian's got implants, about thirty of them if the Iron Bull's scanner can pick up all the latest shit, pretty normal for someone like him. Doesn't need to carry much. But in the places the Iron Bull inhabits most of the time, you're off the grid, or you're a tourist.

Still, worth the risk to message Krem like this now.

"How about it?" Dorian asks.

"Yeah," the Iron Bull says. Smiles, slow with appreciation, anticipation. It's not fake. He's more than able to enjoy fucking, and he's able to appreciate beauty; loves it, finds something to be into about pretty much everyone. Fucking is fun. Fucking is something this body always needed, long before it was called the Iron Bull. 

Dorian smiles back.

"Let's go," the Iron Bull says.

 

 

Dorian's lips are fascinating, damp, slightly parted. He breathes in gasps. His hair, rain-damp, curls messily.

The Iron Bull twists his fingers in it, yanks Dorian's head back so that it thuds against the wall.

Bites down on Dorian's throat, right at the V of it, just above the clavicles.

" _Fuck,_ " Dorian says. "Harder than that, you brute— _ah—_ "

The Iron Bull laughs against Dorian's skin. "Oh, yeah, you're into this, huh?"

Fucking against the wall not a metre from the door, Dorian's heels digging into his back. An illusion of spontaneity when Dorian must have put in so much preparation to just go like this. 

Shift the angle and Dorian's mouth falls open into a shocked O at the Bull's dick pressing even deeper into him.

The Iron Bull would like to kiss that look from his face. But it doesn't matter what he would like, what his routines tell him is appropriate in this situation, all else being equal. It is unnecessary. It would create a false impression of intimacy. Dorian would mistrust it. He's set the terms of engagement here.

"What do you _think?_ " Dorian manages, clenches convulsively around the Iron Bull, claws at his shoulders. "Do it properly. _Now._ "

"Bossy," the Iron Bull says, and sinks his teeth hard into the junction of neck and shoulder, sucks at the skin, sharp red lines and faint dark bruising.

When he pulls back Dorian is biting his own lip so hard that he may draw blood. His hand thuds against the Bull's shoulder, open-palmed, a helpless gesture of desperation, and he must be so fucking close—

When Dorian comes across his own stomach, voice loud but wordless, the Iron Bull allows himself a moment of smug satisfaction. Who else has taken the time to show Dorian some fun like this? Probably no-one for a while, if the shock on his face is anything to go by.

The Iron Bull holds him steady, holds him down so he can feel how hard the Iron Bull still is inside him.

"Keep fucking me," Dorian says, between breaths, as fervent as if he hadn't just gotten off. "On the bed this time. I'll show you something you don't find every day." That smile of his again, the knowing curve of his lips.

 

 

Minrathous always tastes of blood to the Iron Bull, as though it has become a part of the air itself, century upon century of sacrifice, of manipulation, microtechnology in the body to turn it against itself. Iron on the tongue. But Dorian is fire, flickering heat across the Iron Bull's skin, radiating from Dorian's fingertips. There's a delicate edge of control to it, even as Dorian screams at the rough thrusts of the Iron Bull's dick, quick and deep.

In another world, the Iron Bull would work at making him lose it. 

In this one, he is in danger of losing himself. Coming too soon, when they should be doing this for so much longer—

Dorian's fingers dig hard into the back of the Iron Bull's neck.

"Come _on_ ," he says, tilts his hips, squeezes down around the Iron Bull's dick, and holy _shit_ , that's hot. Fire playing along his spine.

He shudders.

Comes.

"There," Dorian says, breathless, "there you are, oh, that's good—"

 

 

When the Iron Bull finally slips into sleep it's late, so late that it's bordering on early. He wakes to an awareness of difference: no Dorian beside him, the smell of cigarette smoke again.

Dorian sits by the window, a silhouette against the first traces of dawn, with his knees drawn up, head turned away. Relaxed. Naked, and unselfconscious about it. 

Here, high up, the sky begins to open, city lights shimmering away into the distance like the surface of some boundless ocean. Shuttles crawl their way upwell. The upper city buildings tower in the distance, great step-pyramids, dotted at their outer edges with climate-controlled gardens and lakes. Their own world.

"You always smoke this much?" the Iron Bull asks, and Dorian starts, curses—of course in High Tevene, what else.

"No," he says. "Of course not. A filthy habit like this, in the Palaces? Dragons save us, no. A bad day, merely. Not that I imagine it matters very much. I wanted—" he breaks off, shrugs. "Never mind. Only foolishness. The son of a rich man, displeased with his luxurious lot, cultivates irritating vices."

"Smoking," the Iron Bull says. "Fucking Vashoth."

"Fucking _men,_ if you please," Dorian says, and he sounds so damn tired when he says it. "The Vashoth part is only a bonus." 

Shit, Tevinter is weird about this stuff, about gender, about desire. Ideas like _gay_ have a weight here that they don't in a lot of other places; aren't something that's even named, always, for all kinds of reasons. It's damn well named here, in the tones of taboo. Everyone all tangled up in this rigid structure that the Iron Bull has been taught, but can never feel. 

He sighs.

The Iron Bull gets up, crosses the room. Makes sure to make some noise so Dorian'll know he's coming even if he doesn't have a fancy implant for that.

Together, they watch the sky grow lighter.

"I can help you keep cultivating your vices a couple more times, if you want," the Iron Bull says.

Dorian laughs. 

Offers him his half-smoked cigarette.

Why does he take it? There's no good reason for him to take it.

Call it building camaraderie. Know it for a transparent falsification, but accept it, lacking anything else. His programming does, after all, allow for deception.

The Iron Bull brings Dorian's cigarette to his mouth.

Dorian's eyes are fixed on his hand. It lends a weird kind of extra intimacy. Almost like a kiss.

Weird, weird, all of it's weird. Dorian doesn't want to kiss him, but he wants to pass a cigarette back and forth between them with a weight that's like they were on kissing terms.

Another piece to the puzzle that the Iron Bull still can't assemble.

 

 

And yeah, they fuck a couple more times. Dorian's cock slick between the Iron Bull's thighs. Between the Iron Bull's lips. The Iron Bull's face pressed into the thick hair between Dorian's legs, deep inhales.

Dorian is hungry. For touch, for sensation. Clutches the Iron Bull to him with legs and arms. Shows off, like it'll win him time.

What does he want?

They shower just after the neon city lights have died. Door to the tiny bathroom open because neither of them want to leave the other alone with their gear. Tiny gestures of suspicion that look, from another angle, almost like trust.

Dorian standing there with steam curling around him, head tipped back under the hot water.

It's not as hot when the Iron Bull takes his turn. It wouldn't be, not in a shitty place like this. Running water's one thing, but a well-maintained heating system? Doubtful.

Fire again, of course.

It's alright. The cool water helps clear his head, sluices away the haze of poor sleep and energetic sex. Problem with being a living thing, a body, is that you have all the problems real people have: get fucking exhausted, ache. Get hungover, too. That one's only just starting to kick in.

By the time he gets out, Dorian is well on his way to looking put-together again, bending close to a tiny pocket mirror to fix his eyeliner.

"Well," the Iron Bull says, stretches, feels his shoulders crunch and settle, "that was fun. Guess you'd better head back to the Palaces before daddy sends a search party, huh?"

It's an obvious play for information, a test to see how it'll go across.

It pays off spectacularly.

Dorian stiffens. Only a moment, but full-body.

Relaxes. "Oh, not yet," he says. "I doubt I've caused nearly enough of a scandal by two nights away. You should buy me breakfast. Then I'll be out of your way. I'm sure I can find someone dashing and handsome to sweep me off my feet for another night or two."

"Hey," the Iron Bull says, with humour, "I'm dashing."

"Hmm," Dorian says.

This, too, is a piece of performance.

"Can't blame a guy for trying," he says aloud. "Breakfast sounds good."

Dorian nods.

‹‹ Hey, Krem, ›› the Iron Bull says inside his head, with Dorian busy throwing shit back into his bag. ‹‹ Got anyone called Dorian missing from the upper city? Maybe Palaces, maybe not. Can confirm interesting target. Need to know more to move forward. ››

A quick description.

No immediate answer, though the message goes through.

 

 

This is when several things happen.

To begin with, the Iron Bull is in the middle of locking up the room and dumping the keycard. Dorian lounges against the wall to his right, bag slung over his shoulder, fingers pressed to his lips like he wants them to be holding a cigarette.

The first thing is Dorian going alarmingly still, which kicks the Iron Bull straight into high alert. 

The second is Krem: 

‹‹ Not reported missing. Know who it is. Pavus. Toth Palace. ››

"Do excuse me," Dorian says—Dorian fucking _Pavus_ says. "I'm afraid I won't be taking breakfast with you."

His voice is tight.

The Iron Bull's first thought, only half irrational, is that Dorian is somehow monitoring his internal communications, which he sure as shit shouldn't be able to do.

His second thought, more reasonable, is: well, I guess this was long enough away for daddy to call in a search team after all.

But not to report it, apparently. Well, maybe that makes sense, if Dorian's all he's playing himself up to be. Scandal is what it is. Reputation, too.

"Doing alright?" the Iron Bull asks.

"Quite," Dorian says, but his eyes flick to the Iron Bull like he wants—whatever it is he's wanted all along, wanted when he was so fucking interested in the Iron Bull being Vashoth, Tal- or otherwise. Wanted, marked by his interest in whether the Iron Bull lived here or not. When he put so much effort into impressing the Iron Bull with sex, and yeah, that worked, he's the best the Iron Bull's had in awhile.

But it was still a show. 

Fucking _crap,_ the Iron Bull thinks. Something's happened. Something bigger than wanting to slum it. Barely any clean clothes, only a satchel, not even a satchel packed with care. Leaving in a hurry, grabbing only what's closest to hand.

He's beginning to have an idea what the pieces add up to. 

He doesn't much like it. But it's exactly the kind of thing he's meant to chase down, leverage, vulnerability.

Fuck, fuck and damn it. Not his kind of game after all. He's only any good at this kind of play with people he hates, and he doesn't hate Dorian. Mistrusts him, sure. Figures he's out to get ahead, definitely. But not hate.

A quirk of his programming that persists despite all efforts. Is that why the Qun says nothing?

"Back stairs," the Iron Bull says. "Down to the alley. Now."

To Krem: ‹‹ Hey, you got any updates on traffic nearby? ››

A whole pile of information back, without commentary. Cabs, private shuttles, the odd car crawling along the street below. And there: unregistered vehicle, sliding to a stop outside the hotel.

Dorian's gaze flickers again. Assessment of variables.

He nods.

 

 

Down the stairs. Their footsteps clatter. Dorian isn't wasting time, takes the spiralling fire escape headlong, so fast the Iron Bull half worries he'll fall. Real urgency, silent and determined.

This is how rich kids run for it when their parents send people to cut their fun short: laughing, breathless, halfhearted. Leaning against an alley wall to grab a kiss while they're high on the adrenaline of it.

Bunch of other places, he'd say Dorian's age would explain it, but Tevinter is Tevinter and the heads of family in the Palaces are notorious. Great cold figures who orchestrate all things of significance in the territories, who orchestrate the business of their families with no more mercy. Creative rebellion in this setting extends well into adulthood.

And Dorian's not running for fun.

Revelation, as they hit the ground running, turn along the alley away from the main street, back into the maze of tight gaps between buildings: 

Dorian Pavus wants to get offworld. And he thinks he can con the Iron Bull into making it happen.

 

 

In a dark doorway, their hearts beat adrenaline-fast. Dorian's breath rasps in this throat. Listen, listen.

No sound of pursuit. Someone shouts, the sound carried from an upper storey window.

It begins to rain again.

The heavy chain across the door has rusted almost solid, forgotten, like an archaeological find. 

You treat the past with respect, Hissrad, Tama says. It always comes back sooner or later. 

Hissrad unit does not understand why it is being told this.

A dusty skull held cupped in the hands, the right horn broken off, the left spiralling. Weapons so rusted a laboratory would need to make sense of them. These ancient half-familiar people who buried their dead on a desert planet, corpses for a corpse.

It is a training facility now. Not for Qunari, of course. But for their tools.

Associations should not spin freely like this. Involuntary recall is a sign of the disintegration of carefully structured pathways. It is—not death, no. No death for equipment. 

But it is something close to it. 

The Iron Bull discards this line of thought, although it leaves him cold.

They stand there until their bodies are steady again, unmoving. 

"You should go your own way now," Dorian says. "Thank you for finding the exit quickly. Don't bother yourself any further over my trivial problems."

Flippancy over pain.

But yeah, there it is: even if part of it's real, he's playing again now. A quick measuring look, a hand which almost reaches for the Iron Bull, hovers as though hesitant, withdraws quickly. He's betting that he's put out enough bait to have caught the Iron Bull's interest. That the Iron Bull will, following the script, say:

"Hey, I'm up for a bit of trouble."

"Are you," Dorian says. Rubs at his face, a tired gesture. Genuine. "You shouldn't be. You can't reasonably lose many more body parts and still get around by yourself, you know. But—I don't suppose you know a medic? I can pay."

"Not a very good one, I guess, if I'm missing this many body parts," the Iron Bull says. Raises his hands to ward against Dorian's narrowed eyes. "Yeah, I know a medic. You hurt?"

"In a manner of speaking," Dorian says, acid.

"Less questions," the Iron Bull hazards.

"At least you learn quickly," Dorian says.


	2. The Chargers

_There it was, that day by the lake, etched in memory. The lines retraced by the asking, cleared of the debris of years. Yes, perhaps that was the first. No easy thing, to grasp the sequence. Dorian remembered many things, but what was time? What was place? Time tangled, snagged._

_Touch your palm flat to the surface of the water. Ripples spread, and bounce, and mingle. Rough wood under your knees._

_Dorian, Mother called across from the patio, Dorian, do be careful—_

_Plunge into cool water, light and heat cast to sudden shadow, hair dragged across your face, down, down—_

_You thought, then—_

_You thought—_

_With all the eccentric fantasy of the very young, you thought—_

_I fell in as one person._

_I was pulled out as another._

 

 

"You want your implants disabled," Stitches says. Gives the Iron Bull a flat look that clearly communicates how much he appreciates being asked to perform the same trick on a stranger it'd taken him months to figure out how to do on the Iron Bull.

"Should be easy," the Iron Bull says, claps him on the shoulder. "Smart man like you. None of this Qunari mess, all nice and human."

"Get out," Dorian says.

Stitches raises an eyebrow. The Iron Bull shrugs. 

"You two work it out," he says, and leaves them to it. Could use some time to sort through the pieces, anyhow. Dorian with his pride and his games and his complete willingness to put himself in situations where people could easily murder him, cripple him or strip him of his physical possessions on the off-chance they'll help him get ahead instead.

Leaning against the wall in the scruffy, nondescript hallway, he waits. Thinks. 

A strip-light flickers. Harsh humming, grating.

He could, he thinks, incongruously, use a cigarette.

Is it ignorance of danger? No. Dorian sounded flippant when he talked about being too drunk to know if he was murdered, but Dorian sounded flippant when he asked for a medic, too. Indulge the peculiar rich person. And then it's a flickering gaze as he gets ready to ask someone he doesn't know to fuck around in his head, a firm stance and a smile as he actually says the words. It's possible he sounds flippant when he says anything that matters. Need some more data. But a working hypothesis.

Oh, Dorian Pavus remembers that he will die. Does he think that this death would be a better one than whatever it is he's running from? Maybe.

On my own damn terms, Krem says, and pulls himself up straight, staring the Iron Bull down as the Iron Bull's vision wavers on the edge of whiting out completely from pain. A ruined eye, and a subconscious that doesn't understand what's happened, even though Hissrad unit isn't exactly unfamiliar with bodily harm. 

The slide of recall, the measure of time uncertain. Here, here, here. Now, a decade ago, now.

Yeah, I'll fight for you, Krem says. Die for you, if you like. Figure you've earned that much.

Fucking Tevinter. Tevinter, where any debt is in blood sooner or later.

In the room behind him, Stitches' voice is low and level, the cadence of it familiar. The Iron Bull could listen in if he wanted, but Stitches is his team; got to trust that anything important will get passed on. 

Harder to resist turning himself entirely to the task of hearing when it's Dorian talking. The animated, agitated rise and fall of his words. This is the shit he needs.

Trust Stitches.

Then his moment is past anyway. Relative silence settles. Drawers opened and closed. Single words which must be blunt instructions, pretty typical for Stitches' bedside manner.

Only waiting to be done, then.

The Iron Bull sighs, and stretches the stiffness from his all too real muscles, and goes to find a properly comfortable chair.

 

 

Shutting off implants is a fucking unpleasant feeling. Nothing invasive about it, not like ripping them out completely or hiding them convincingly from sight, but a buzzing, scratching kind of business, like sandpaper against your bones. The Iron Bull shut most of his off when he wasn't sure he'd be able to keep control of them, didn't want the extra edge they'd provide him with when his routines finally gave out. Armour and weapons. These days he's mostly limited to comms, a little sensory enhancement. He was built strong enough to get by more than fine in most of the situations he finds himself in.

Dorian, though—Dorian's hiding. What's he losing?

What's he keeping?

He's pale when he comes out, the washed-out grey of sustained discomfort. But he's steady on his feet. The Iron Bull can respect that.

"You're still here," Dorian says.

"What, Stitches didn't tell you I was hard to get rid of?"

"Oh, yes," Dorian says. "Several times. I only thought—hm."

"That I wasn't getting what I wanted from you after all?"

"Well—yes."

"Not yet," the Iron Bull says, "but maybe I like you."

Dorian laughs, winces. "You most certainly do not. I may be ever so talented in bed, but you can barely stand me otherwise. I know. If I were you, I would barely be able to stand me either."

"Maybe I'm interested."

"More plausible," Dorian concedes. "I _am_ quite the enigma. I'm told it's part of my thoroughly intolerable charm. Well, you'll be glad to know that if you decide to strangle me after all and drop my body in an alley then it will now take considerably longer for anyone to track it down. Congratulations."

He spreads his arms as though in invitation.

"You want me to strangle you a bit, I can think of better ways to go about it," the Iron Bull says, and gets to see Dorian flush, the colour of it sharper than it would usually be against his currently washed-out skin. 

"I want no such thing," he says sharply, and the way his pupils dilate _could_ be fear. Best not to push it. "I merely—oh."

Looking a little faint there. It won't just be the pain. It's the reaching for parts of your brain that aren't there any more. Makes you space-sick on solid ground.

"Crap, you should sit down," the Iron Bull says. "Don't want to carry you. You're pretty but you're not small."

"Sit," Stitches adds, appearing in the doorway. Dorian, who had been on the verge of puffing up in indignation, subsides at this matter-of-fact command; sits next to the Iron Bull.

He's breathing too carefully.

"Don't know where you found him, sir, but he's your responsibility now," Stitches says. "You bring home strays, you have to feed them."

Dorian barks laughter, slumps a little. "Not _your_ responsibility, my clever friend? You and your little machines?"

"Done my bit," Stitches says.

"Yes, thank you," Dorian says. "The inside of my head is quite thoroughly scraped. I feel my teeth may still be vibrating. Not to mention the elbow."

"Elbow's on you," Stitches says.

Dorian's mouth twitches, though his eyes are closed. "Yes, well, do excuse me for that moment of startlement."

"We can't all be the imperial doctor, can we," Stitches says.

"Wait," the Iron Bull says. "You're _joking_ with him."

"Well done, sir," Stitches says. "I see you still understand the general principles."

"Stitches," the Iron Bull says, "how long did it take you to crack a joke at me?"

"More to the point," Dorian says, without opening his eyes, "does he really always call you sir?"

"That was the first joke," Stitches says.

"That's harsh," the Iron Bull says, and it's kinda normal, kinda like hanging out with the boys is meant to be. Only Dorian isn't one of the boys, and he's known Stitches for all of three hours, and most of that time wasn't spent on light conversation.

And they're joking.

Maybe he should've listened in.

 

 

Dorian, curled into the armchair, seems no smaller; but, dozing fitfully, his expression shifting without conscious will, he becomes a person. Anyone at all. 

Stitches' clinic isn't much of a clinic, just a cramped apartment where the biggest separate room is given over to equipment and cases of drugs it's best not to ask too closely after the origin of. Orderly and clean. 

The rest of it is a fucking mess. Mattress folded up against the wall; tiny table with a single chair attached, a worn out sweater thrown over the back of it, a pile of plates on its top. Not much personal out and about, though there usually would be; it's all stuffed into the big duffle bag by the door. 

Stitches moves through the chaos expertly, clattering around with a pan of water which the Iron Bull can only hope is eventually going to turn into shitty Fereldan tea.

"He's a mark, then," Stitches says, fake-casual. Doesn't look around.

"Think I'm his, actually," the Iron Bull says.

"Oh, right. That's better, then."

Dorian's breathing doesn't shift. Heart rate even. If he's faking, he's doing it well.

Could be faking. 

Still, nothing sensitive so far—not like they haven't as good as had that conversation.

"What did he tell you?"

More sensitive. He keeps his attention turned towards Dorian, counts the thud of his heartbeat, the rhythm of his breathing. Ordinary for a healthy human at rest. Unaltered.

No reaction on his face. Not even a flicker.

Stitches stills. The kettle yells into the silence, drowns the sound of traffic above and below.

"Not much that's your business," Stitches says at last. "Try asking him."

"Alright," the Iron Bull says, and Stitches does turn then, eyebrows drawn up.

"That's it?"

"Yeah," the Iron Bull says. "That's it. Maybe I'll try asking him."

"Krem will never believe this," Stitches says.

"Krem should've made it here on time then," the Iron Bull says.

Stitches shrugs. 

Tea. If the Iron Bull had really been Qunari, maybe he'd have hated it; the Qun takes tea seriously, surrounds it with ritual and significance. But that's for Qunari. For tools, water.

The tea's pretty good, to his inexpert palate. Comfortable junk.

Dorian, reluctantly rejoining them in consciousness for the grand event, looks kind of offended by it, but it doesn't stop him. Gives him a bit of colour back, too. Seems to relax him slowly back into himself. He stops holding himself so gingerly, lowers his shoulders.

That's good, considering they've still got plenty of work to do.

 

 

Krem and Skinner, arriving in Skinner's flyer. Krem makes the jump down over the rail onto the narrow walkway before they've come to a stop, strides inside; a quick handclasp for Stitches, hands between their chests, foreheads close. A pointed stare for the Iron Bull, before he's even let Stitches go.

For Dorian, calculation, returned in kind.

"Oh man," Krem says, "Skinner's going to _hate_ this."

Skinner is, in fact, going to hate this.

"You don't have to sound so happy about it, Krem," the Iron Bull says. "If you've got time to mouth off, you've got time to start carrying things."

"Mouth off yourself, you damn—" Krem starts, and breaks off on the last word. Another quick glance at Dorian.

Mouth off yourself, you damn machine, didn't they program you to be polite?

I don't know, Krem. You saying you want me to do the voice again?

"Ugh," Krem says instead. "Fine. Hey, Stitches, where do we start?"

"At the beginning," Stitches says. "One drawer, one box. Gloves for gear. You don't need to ask me, you know."

"You're clearing out completely," Dorian says, pauses. His face is a study, eyebrows drawn down, lips tight. A beat. It clears. "Of course you are."

"Do it every few months," Krem says. "You're not special."

"I beg to differ," Dorian says. "I'm _ever_ so special."

"Skinner is really, really going to hate this," Krem says to the Iron Bull, and heads off to start packing down.

"Skinner hates everything," Stitches says helpfully.

"Skinner hates rich humans," the Iron Bull says, with more truth. "You might want to, uh," he waves a hand, encompassing most of Dorian's person, "watch that."

"Ah," Dorian says, "yes, well. I shall be meek and agreeable as a bous."

"Don't they bite?" Stitches asks.

"It's possible I'm thinking of the wrong animal, of course," Dorian says. A quirk of the lips, fingertips touched to them in mock consideration. "I never did pay very much attention to the taxonomies of the worlds and all of that. How unfortunate."

"Now you're just being an asshole," the Iron Bull says.

"Excuse me," Dorian says, "for not being perfectly civil and pleasant in the face of—of all this."

"These guys are helping you," the Iron Bull says. "Sure, you've got money, but they're only doing it because I thought they should. Maybe don't go out of your way to make me change my mind."

He expects another sharp comeback, but gets only silence. Like Dorian is actually thinking about it, though probably he's just weighing his options for getting through this.

"Yes," Dorian says finally. Another long silence. "I apologise."

"Alright," the Iron Bull says. "Go carry shit, if you're back on your feet. Krem'll tell you where to put it."

 

 

Skinner hates it. Oh, she doesn't say shit—she's dealt with enough of the Iron Bull's jobs to keep a lid on it, but the look she gives him is venom right through, quick and vicious over her shoulder from the driver's seat. Eyes darting to the dark mark on Dorian's neck that everyone else has been polite enough to ignore.

This is the conversation, well-worn:

Put your dick in whatever you like, but you have shitty taste.

Hey, I don't have taste at all. I like everyone. Also, it's a job. 

Didn't like that guy you shot last week.

On and on.

More unusually, Krem is looking a bit tight around the corners of the mouth himself. He knows the routines, gets pretty into the whole ripping off the upper classes game; plays the suspicious commoner well, but not like this. So that means he's gotten wind of—whatever it is, the unsettled feeling in the pit of the Iron Bull's stomach.

Maybe he could tell the Iron Bull what it is. It's pretty far outside of his operating parameters. Running a regular job that gave him this off feeling, he'd have turned his mind to guidance long before now.

That part of his brain's gone, though. Not disabled like Dorian's shit, like most of his own. 

The first implant to cut out completely. He might as well be a receiver tuned to a dead channel.

"Where exactly are we going?" Dorian asks, but quietly, and that's as much like deferential as he's likely to get, the Iron Bull figures. Best behaviour.

"Depends who's looking," the Iron Bull says. Glances over at Krem, who nods, dives down into his head to sort through thread after thread of information.

Good at it, for someone who wasn't made for it. Pattern recognition, selective focus.

"Pavus," he says, "tell me what you think I'm looking for." He's motionless except for the flicker of his eyes.

Stitches shakes his head silently. Nothing like this in Ferelden, connections with Tevinter and the Qun both too bad to spread the tech. Not much of it in the Allied Systems, either. Freaked him out something awful, the first time. Yeah, he mucks around in people's heads all the time, but he doesn't always like watching the stuff he fixes up actually doing its thing.

Everyone's got their stuff.

Dorian has no such hesitations, on the other hand. "Red Blade vehicles of any kind," he says promptly. "Don't count on it actually being them aboard—I'd bet on the personal touch only direct employees can provide, were I a betting man. Watch the cabs, too. I doubt he's above requisitioning them. Don't bother with city security, you won't get anything there."

"Got it," Krem says.

No pretense on either side. Dorian doesn't bother misunderstanding, oh, you don't think we're being _followed_ — 

Telling enough in itself, more evidence for the overwhelming pile that says Dorian Pavus either is real trouble in his own right, or is _in_ real trouble with someone high up. It being both is looking increasingly likely.

"Yeah," Krem says. "Think we're going to have company. Who'd you piss off, Pavus?"

"Oh, more or less everyone," Dorian says. His mouth twists like he's bitten something sour. " _Pariah_ has an exciting ring to it, don't you think?"

"So we're properly past the whole rich kid screwing around act now, are we?" the Iron Bull asks.

"I wouldn't go that far," Dorian says. "I did get on people's bad sides mostly via creative sexual deviance."

I'll show you something you don't find every day, he said, flexing his body around the Iron Bull's dick, stomach covered in his own come. He was out to get something, to get this, people who know how to run. But he fucking _loved_ it, every moment they spent screwing around. Laughed as they clawed at each other. 

Turned away his face whenever it edged on tender, like he hardly knew what to do with it. That might just be the circumstances, though. The mistrust.

But here's the thing about Dorian's story: the Palaces live for the exact things they label sexual deviance. You marry for alliance and you screw people you're not theoretically meant to for the thrill of it.

Fucking the wrong people in the wrong way wouldn't do it, not by itself.

But then Skinner's banking hard, throwing the Iron Bull's considerable weight sideways against Stitches, throwing him out of calculation and back into the moment.

"North," Krem says. "16th. Low."

Not much prospect of losing anyone with decent resources properly, not above ground. But open a gap, win a little time.

"Hold on," Skinner says, and drops them sharply down a good fifteen storeys, engines cutting and then roaring again.

" _Venhedis_ ," Dorian says.

"Hey, you wanted to get away," the Iron Bull says. "We're getting away."

Skinner's laugh is harsh and delighted. This part she'd do for free, although it'd end in a lot more violence if she had her way. 

Still might anyway.

The sky above them is a violent evening orange, in fragments, criss-crossed tightly here with power lines. 

"Up," Krem says. "Find a gap."

Quick banking through traffic, straight up into the net of wires. A clip to a wing as Skinner wrenches them sideways through a space that's barely big enough, and then they're skidding up and out into the brilliant slanting light of the sunset, their shadow stretched long across the rooftops. A quick flash of red below, straight past, too heavy to follow the sharp movements of the flier. Armour over maneuverability.

Skinner kicks the engines up to full power, sets them racing, the flicker of street after street below.

Another sharp drop back into twilight.

"Get us to the tunnels before we get security on our asses too," the Iron Bull says. "Come on, Krem."

"Yeah, thanks," Krem says. "Never would've figured that one out. Got Rocky and Dalish on it, getting a few cameras and sensors fucked up."

"What a versatile group," Dorian says. 

"That's what you were after," the Iron Bull says. "Vashoth mercenaries are the best there is, that's what you lot say. We're better. You got lucky."

"I wonder," Dorian says, and though his smile is teasing it's a very surface sort of thing, his eyes serious.

He's still looking for the trick.

Smart guy.

And then it's down, down, a blind alley and an unchained gate. They're plunged with a shock into the close darkness of the aqueducts and train tunnels that're all that's left of Old Minrathous. Unmourned beneath the world, technically locked up but not nearly tightly enough to do much, disparate parts crumbling slowly into one another. All of it honeycombed with impromptu housing and smuggler's caches and the hidden entrances of safehouses.

It is disrespect, Tama says. It is chaos. So much is lost. But make use of it.

All things have their place; as there is order, so too there is disorder.

Beyond the borders of the Qun, at least.

Silence as they work their way through the maze, lights killed, engines sunk to a quiet low drone. They become a part of the echoing life of the place. Sink below the surface of it all.

By the flickering light of an unsteady generator in some passing house, Dorian's face is revealed and concealed in moments. Undisguised curiosity. 

Exhaustion.

Stitches leans back with closed eyes, wedged securely between the Iron Bull and the frame of the flyer. Krem holds himself with a stillness that says he isn't entirely there, still watchful, both above and below. The back-and-forth wavering of attention that's inevitable if you're just a person with implants, however good you are.

"Alright," Krem says finally. "We're clear as we're getting."

"Take us in somewhere with beds, Skinner," the Iron Bull says. "Any of the houses. Not picky."

"Yes," Skinner says. Shifts them, with a gentler hand than anyone who'd seen her dodging traffic a couple of hours ago would've believed, towards what the Iron Bull can only hope is a safehouse they've kept decently equipped.


	3. Dark Water

_Yes: we are lost without our memories. Oh, we are still someone—but who, what? A thing with no name._

_Father, restless, paced the room—as though he were the one confined, the one restrained to stillness where he longed for action._

_His hand on the sill of the window, more deeply lined with age now than it appeared in Dorian's mind._

_Dorian—I have always tried to be a good father. I have given you things to remember fondly, I think._

_Ah, Dorian said. Yes. Being removed from a bedchamber by armed and rather blood-spattered personal guards was a true highlight of my life, I must say._

_I do regret it, Father said. You must believe—we were threatened with blackmail._

_Always your fucking reputation._

_Father's mouth tightened. Distaste._

_The room had grown darker, fallen partly into shadow. The lamps ought to have come to life by now. But there was only the last of the sunset._

_Your reputation, Dorian. I know you care little for it now, but there will come a day when it seems a great deal more important. I will not always be able to protect you._

_Ah, Dorian said, because propriety had in truth never been his strength, perhaps I ought to ask the Archon, then. He seemed to enjoy—_

_Dorian, Father said. I beg of you. This is no light matter._

_No, Dorian said. It isn't._

_I quite agree._

 

 

Early morning. Above, the city will be getting slowly lighter; down here, it's mostly noticeable by the slight upturn in activity along the waterways and in the houses. Light after light flickers on, generators and gas lamps and the odd upper city lantern, purloined. Beautiful things, those: they hang along the wall of the nearest building, glowing spheres like small suns, morning light mirroring pink across the rippling water.

They're not on lockdown, and he's pretty sure they're not going to need the house again, so the Iron Bull takes himself outside into the perpetual half-light; sits on the broken stairs with his feet just above the surface of the underground river or canal or lake. The air still moves down here, isn't worse than the streets of the lower city for the most part. And it's cool, like sitting in a deep cave.

Not bad.

The opening and closing of the door behind him.

"There you are, you big idiot," Krem says, and drops himself onto the step beside the Iron Bull.

Sighs.

"Doing alright there, Krem?" the Iron Bull asks.

"That's what I'm meant to be asking you," Krem says. "He's the job we picked up day before yesterday, right?"

"Yeah," the Iron Bull says. He feels strangely defensive. Why?

File the feeling away. Defective response.

"You still treating this as a job?"

"Of course."

A makeshift boat sculls past, the soft swish of the oar, the steady rippling of the water in its wake catching the light. In the distance, from some unseen corner, the Chantry cry goes up. Always underground here, hidden away well out of sight in the hostile draconic heart of the Imperium. Andraste on her pyre, and the slaves set free.

Krem bows his head a little at the sound, as he always does.

Straightens again.

"You sure about that?"

"I'm sure."

"Alright," Krem says. 

The Iron Bull grunts in irritation. "Just say it, whatever it is you're sitting on. Quit screwing around."

‹‹ Could say the same to you, ›› Krem says, slipping into silent speech. ‹‹ This one's on the run, and he's too sharp. He's not going to buy some sob story and hand you the keys to the family vault, and selling people isn't your style. You're not going to get shit from this one. Chief. ››

‹‹ Information, ›› the Iron Bull says, responding in kind. ‹‹ I'm going to get information. You remember? The main point? ››

"No," Krem says. He says it aloud, maybe just for the satisfaction of giving the word force, spitting it between his teeth. "It's not the main point. You're not working for the damn Qun. You want to keep pretending, go ahead, but this one's really dangerous, and if you get us killed by thinking with your dick—"

He breaks off. Sharp.

Why?

"Relax, Krem," the Iron Bull says. "You keep yourself in form, nobody has to get killed here."

"Says the robot that's falling apart," Krem says. Scrubs at his face with both hands. "Fuck. I don't like it."

They sit in silence. 

"I'm not pretending," the Iron Bull says.

"Right," Krem says.

"I'm not a person, Krem," the Iron Bull says.

"Right," Krem says.

"You don't have to stick with this. Just because I can only do what I'm meant to do doesn't mean you have to be my team."

"Oh, for—" Krem smacks the Iron Bull's arm with the back of his hand. "You're a fucking idiot."

"Yeah," the Iron Bull says. "You've told me that."

"Still true," Krem says.

The Iron Bull shrugs.

Silence again.

"You can help him because you like him," Krem says.

Not a damn thing the Iron Bull can think of to say to that, so he doesn't.

"Helped me because you like me, didn't you?" Krem says.

"It was injustice," the Iron Bull says. Sighs. "Yeah, I like you. Don't know if I like him. Doesn't matter, anyway. He needs to get off-world, I'm pretty sure. You've been telling me we should get off-world and set up new operations for, what, five years?"

"Seven," Krem says.

"Yeah."

"I can't believe you," Krem says. "Yeah, alright. I'll take it. Guess I should thank him, so long as he's not planning on selling us out for favours like the rich tosser he is."

"Ah, don't worry so much," the Iron Bull says. Throws an arm around Krem's shoulder. "You can take him."

 

 

Dorian is up again when the Iron Bull heads back inside, leaving Krem to dig through the bags in the underbelly of the flyer for whatever it is he's forgotten. He's sitting at the table in what passes for the kitchen, elbows on its top, chin rested on one hand.

Dark around the eyes. It's more obvious when he's just woken up, for all the Iron Bull noticed it from the first.

He grabs a flask of pre-made tea from the cupboard, couple of glasses to go with it, and swings himself into the chair opposite.

"Doing alright?"

"Oh, you know," Dorian says. The ghost of a smile, only the slightest shift of the corners of his mouth. "Can't complain. Although Skinner did accost me on the topic of slavery while you were out, which was exciting. Did you know I'm personally responsible for it? I was quite impressed."

"You are," the Iron Bull says. "Don't look like that. That's what civilisation is. You draw lines. Advantage and disadvantage. Someone always has to pay the price, and everyone who doesn't benefits in some way. That's how it works. You don't spread the payment out evenly, you're responsible."

"Is that what the Qun taught you?" Dorian asks, snappish. On the defensive. Knows, maybe, that he's in the wrong. Too soon for him to admit it. "All that propaganda? There is no slavery, you know. There are contracts. It's not the same. Not like the old times."

Oh, really.

"It's what existing taught me," the Iron Bull says. "You want to go talk to some of the runaways down here? We can do that. See what they have to say. If they don't think there's slavery."

 

"Dragons, no," Dorian says, folding. "Skinner has cut quite enough of my pride for today, with your assistance."

It's not quite an admission, but it's probably as close as they're getting for today. A rich tosser, Krem said. Yeah, well.

It's not like he hasn't heard the speech about contracts before. It's a popular one, usually given at length. The Alti always want to tell people all about it: no, look, we're enlightened.

But there's that uneasiness in Dorian, Altus arrogance but with an edge of uncertainty to his position that makes him hesitate where he ought to push. It's not like he's a decent person, exactly, but maybe he could be. Enough give to him that he might learn a thing or two, one day.

"Tea," the Iron Bull says, in concession, and because that's what you do with the smart ones: prod enough that they don't feel coddled, concede enough that they don't feel alienated. "Uh, kind of. Don't know what they make it from." Something different everywhere, different plants, different productions. The Qun's tea is thick and bitter, Tevinter's rich with spice.

You can help him because you like him.

Does he like Dorian?

Dorian sighs. "Thank you."

Something golden-yellow, this stuff, translucent in their plain glasses. Dorian cups his hands around his, soaking up the warmth of it. Eyes closed in relief before he's even drunk from it. He should be sitting cross-legged on a vibrant rug in an adopted Qunari style, with his friends, laughing. Or in one of the elaborately constructed gardens of the Palaces, surrounded by cascades of bright green leaves and the clear sound of water. Green glasses edged with gold, and a delicately patterned metal pot.

It pleased a young man once to take the Iron Bull as his bodyguard, to stand a pace behind him, to walk silent and watchful at his side along the black marble corridors of Lusacan Palace. For the shock of it, only; a fine game. 

Imagine Dorian in that world. Hold it. This is what you're dealing with.

"We should talk," the Iron Bull says. "About what you're after, I mean."

"I imagine you have some theories already," Dorian says. 

"Yeah. Could just tell me, though."

Dorian shrugs. "And you could just tell me what your little outfit is hoping to win from me besides my last credits, but I wasn't under the impression that was the game we were playing."

"Alright," the Iron Bull says. "I'll give you a theory. You're looking to be smuggled out. Off-world, I'd guess. Out of system, probably. Maybe even out of Tevinter space. How am I doing?"

"Not badly, if limiting yourself a little. This is all on the level of painfully obvious, don't you think?"

"Oh, I don't know," the Iron Bull says. "You get out of the urban areas, you could go to ground pretty well without leaving the planet. Your implants are offline, there're plenty of quiet little houses near your contracted workers' tea plantations. Shave the moustache and call yourself Darin like you're from one of the backwater systems."

"Frankly," Dorian says, "I think I might rather die than shave the moustache off. I might be taken for Nevarran, and then where would we be?"

"Safer," the Iron Bull says. 

"I," Dorian says, hesitates—here, on the edge of some truth, his eyes flicking quickly to the side, down to his cup of tea, up to meet the Iron Bull's single working eye. "No, no—what would I do with a country villa? Simply waste away from boredom. You know how it is. I am made for fine parties. How could I deprive the universe so?"

Dorian, in rolled-up shirt-cuffs. His hair unstyled, face bare. Deep in the undercity, in a dingy kitchen. 

He's infuriating in his thoughtless entitlement, only partly feigned. Interesting in the fleeting, slippery fragments of vulnerability and strength that he displays, with or without intention.

He's beautiful. As beautiful like this as when he's carefully put together. As he was when the Iron Bull fucked him.

The Iron Bull doesn't trust beauty, but he doesn't mind looking at it while he puts the pieces together.

"Alright," the Iron Bull says. "Off-world. You wanted to know where I live. Hoped it wasn't here, right?"

Dorian's mouth quirks a little. "Transparent as that. Goodness."

 

"I'll take you off-world," the Iron Bull says. "Me and my boys, we're heading out anyway. Cumberland via Nessum, if we can get a ride out that way. That work for you?"

Dorian hums agreement. "I've always wanted to go to Nevarra. And the terms?"

He thinks he knows already, looking at the Iron Bull with that flirtatious smirk, foot stretched out under the table. Nothing unusual in that sort of thing, not here.

"You don't have to fuck me as payment," the Iron Bull says, and gets to see Dorian looking genuinely startled. "We had fun the other night, but you should never owe anyone sex. You said you had credits."

"For the medic, yes," Dorian says. "I thought you Qunari looked on sex as strictly business. You're very peculiar. I suppose I should have known that when you didn't kill me."

The Iron Bull shrugs. "Sex is—I don't know. It's not personal. But we don't trade in it like this." The dissonance of the word _we_ , still, although he is authorised to use it in conversation with non-Qunari. "You're properly cut off?"

"Well, no," Dorian says, "but I am if I want to remain undiscovered. If I touch my accounts, nothing good would come of it, I assure you. Well—for you, perhaps."

They drink, slow sips.

"What did you mean," Dorian says, "about sex? You were happy enough to fuck me in exchange for a room. And I doubt I disappointed you."

"I was happy enough to fuck you because you wanted to be fucked," the Iron Bull says. "The room was just practical. You could've paid for the room, sold any of the things in your bag if you needed to. You just didn't want to. You weren't reliant on me."

"These distinctions all seem very arbitrary to me," Dorian says. Sighs. "Very well. Not sex. What, then? What is it that you're actually after from me? Don't say nothing, because I know very well there has to be something. You would have retracted your offer once you knew I hadn't enough credits to cover it if that were the case."

"Maybe I just think you look like you could use a hand," the Iron Bull says.

Dorian narrows his eyes at him in consideration of this statement which falls far too close to truth. "No," he says. "I don't think so."

The Iron Bull leaves a silence there for Dorian to fill. You can learn a lot just by letting people talk, and they do tend to feel compelled to fill empty spaces with noise.

"You're Tal-Vashoth," Dorian says. "Why did you leave, precisely? What was your designation? I suppose people assume you were with the Antaam, but I wonder if you weren't something else altogether. You measure me so. Not Tal-Vashoth at all, perhaps?"

Surprise, quickly suppressed. "You've been thinking pretty hard about this, huh?"

"Deflection," Dorian says. "Why did you leave?"

"I—" A spinning blackness, like the fall into a gate, the stars extinguished. Why—what—

"Well?"

The Iron Bull resists the urge to rub at his jaw. He holds himself in absolute stillness. If he does not, what might he do?

It is dark— 

It is—

"I see," Dorian says. And how long has the Iron Bull been silent for? It slips and slides, the uncertain movement of the physical body through time; no straight line, as the Qun knows. Tama touches the ruins of an ancient temple and says: they are still there. And we are here among them.

Involuntary recall is a sign of the disintegration—

He is in darkness, and somebody is shouting—

He is in the desert, and Tama is stern, and she says—she says— 

Listen, Ashkaari, to what I have to say to you—

It is Hissrad, not Ashkaari. Ashkaari is not an authorised name. It is not a unit name. It is a name for this segment only and this segment is not an individual.

The Iron Bull is not meant to hold these images at all. 

Songs by the river. 

_In the early morning light_   
_I stand and am renewed_   
_By the wisdom of Koslun_

Not a prayer but a song of honour for the dead. 

Irrelevant.

Irrelevant.

Irrelevant.

These parts of him are removed. Why do they return?

But in the darkness—

"If I was a spy," the Iron Bull says, "I'd have a smart story for you."

"Would you," Dorian says. Not a true question. "This play of distress provides far fewer opportunities for me to verify or falsify your status, don't you think?"

"Why are you running from Minrathous?" the Iron Bull asks. "What did you tell Stitches to make him think you're worth protecting?"

His cast is true.

Dorian's fingers tighten on his glass, slacken quickly away from the heat.

"You've made your point."

"Yeah. I guess we're taking each other on trust for now, huh?"

"It does seem that way," Dorian agrees. "So. What is it to be? For my passage."

"Honest work should do it," the Iron Bull says. "Well, honest as it gets on a smuggler's ship, which I'm guessing is what we're going to need."

Dorian's shoulders relax. What did he expect?

"Very well," he says. "Yes. I accept."

 

 

A general coming and going all through that day, although the flyer stays where it is. Skinner shouts to a passing elf, leaps deftly onto his boat and throws a mock-salute in the Bull's direction as they pull away. Comes back with her gear, Dalish, and Dalish's gear a few hours later.

"This is exciting," Dalish says. "Where's the boneheaded shem?"

"Here," Dorian says, "and endeavouring to keep his head to himself."

"Oh, really," the Iron Bull says. "You were pretty generous with it the other day."

But that has Dorian frowning, exasperated. So he backs off. It was a one-night deal. That's fine.

Grim shows just after the sixth hour with his usual single duffle-bag that apparently contains all he can imagine needing in the world, and Rocky is last in, on his own robust flyer, heavy with gear.

They'd need to go the smuggler's route just to get his crap off-world, never mind Dorian.

Krem, inconspicuous because of heritage, is the one who takes on the job of hunting down a suitable ship, which leaves the Iron Bull jobless and restless, fidgeting around the small space until Skinner snaps at him and Dalish doesn't even come to his defence.

"Go fuck your new shem again or something," she says instead, snappish, so obviously that bit of gossip has spread around. "Get off our tits."

"He's not my shem," the Iron Bull says. "He's dangerous. Remember that."

"I'm not about to forget," Skinner says, in her sharply accented tones. "Tell yourself. You're the one risking our necks to get him out of here. It would be safer to leave without him."

"We wouldn't be leaving at all without him," the Iron Bull says. "It's a job, Skinner."

He's lying. He isn't even certain why.

"Whatever you say, Boss," Skinner says. Tosses her favoured blade and catches it deftly. Smirks up at him, not terribly pleasantly. "Tell me when you need a throat cut."

It's fine. She doesn't need to be pleasant. Hasn't got much reason to be. Her people here are working on the tea plantations, her people in Orlais are barely working at all. Barely eating at all, either.

 

 

Dorian is restless too, but he turns it inward, goes quiet. Fingers worrying at his wrist, chain-smoking, a troubled expression. He's the sort of person who's always in motion, big gestures, fast thoughts. Doesn't take long to figure that bit out, the way he talks, the way he moves even when he's sitting and drinking. If it was just boredom, the Iron Bull thinks, he'd probably be grandstanding.

Could be that Skinner really did puncture his enthusiasm properly, of course.

Rocky has booze in the box he's brought in, so the Iron Bull pilfers a bottle as a peace offering, goes to find Dorian, who's wandered off and pressed himself into a quiet corner between the kitchen and the room crammed with mattresses.

"Come on," he says, gestures towards the improvised bedroom.

"Propositioning me after all?" Dorian asks. "How inconsistent."

"Only for a drink," the Iron Bull says. "Mattresses are more comfortable than the damn chairs."

"I see," Dorian says, with meaning, but he hauls himself upright and follows the Iron Bull's lead.

Backs to the wall, legs very nearly touching. The alcohol is some of that Dwarven shit that's distilled and distilled until you can't tell what it's made of, which is generally taken to be for the best, given how much agricultural land is left to Orzammar and Kal-Sharok combined. Why they're so bloody-minded about actually distilling from whatever crap they've got left over he doesn't know, but Rocky insists it's an honoured tradition.

Rocky also insists that blowing up bits of historic buildings is an honoured tradition, although he'll freely admit that it's one he was exiled for.

It'll do.

The Iron Bull drinks deeply from the bottle; offers it directly to Dorian. Grassy, a little bitter, unidentifiable herbs steeped in it. Not a bit of smoothness.

"Vishante kaffas," Dorian says. Coughs. "Literally, possibly."

Considers.

"It does improve," he says at length. "The taste is of cleaning fluid mixed with malort, but the aftertaste will do."

Another long swallow before he passes the bottle back to the Iron Bull.

"So we're doing this, hauling you out of here," the Iron Bull says. "You wanna tell me why?"

"Not particularly," Dorian says. "Allow me to drink a little more first."

He fumbles in a pocket for cigarettes, smirks at the Iron Bull as he sparks fire from his fingers to light one. Alright, so he kept his offensive implants; that's a thing, that's good to know. Might be trouble. Might come in handy.

The little paper cigarette packet is almost empty. Dorian, in some sort of burst of generosity, offers one to the Iron Bull anyway.

"Nah," the Iron Bull says. "Keep them. You'll probably need them more than I do."

"Possibly," Dorian says. "Dragons, I'm going to need a proper purge by the time we get back to some sort of civilisation."

That this place definitely constitutes a civilisation, taken on its own terms, is probably best left out of the conversation for now. You can only fight so much over that kind of snobbishness in one day. Fuck knows the Iron Bull hasn't always been able to see it, if it comes to that.

"Could be worse," the Iron Bull says. "Pretty easy to purge that stuff. You're gonna have to stop once we get on a shuttle upwell anyway."

Dorian shrugs. Drags in smoke, breathes it out slowly through his nose.

Fuck, that's kind of hot.

The Iron Bull drinks. Head back. His horns scrape against the walls.

When he glances over at Dorian, he's being watched: Dorian's eyes intent on the movement of his throat, flicking quickly back up to his face at the first sign of the Iron Bull looking his way.

Snatches the bottle back.

"Don't drink too fast," the Iron Bull says, and Dorian raises an eyebrow at him.

Drinks too fast.

No coughing this time.

The awareness of Dorian's body so close to his thrums through the Iron Bull. Sharp-edged flashes of recall. Dorian's face at the moment when he comes. His body curled in against the Iron Bull's, forehead to the Iron Bull's shoulder, hand clutching at his arm.

Yeah, it'd be pretty good to fuck him again. No question there. Maybe not the moment. He meant what he said about not taking it as payment. But maybe—

Probably not.

Time slides, blurs. In the dim room, silence becomes a living thing, circling them. Claustrophobic.

"You're aware," Dorian says abruptly, hesitates. "You are aware that I—prefer men."

"I guessed," the Iron Bull says. "But what the fuck do I know? Just know you're into big muscular guys. Doesn't mean that's all you're into."

"Large and muscular is optional," Dorian says. "Preferred, certainly. That they be men is not."

"Alright," the Iron Bull says.

"I'm not under the impression that you're ignorant of the way the Palaces do things," Dorian says.

Drinks again, hands the bottle over at last.

They're going to need water soon. Should've brought that along too.

"No," the Iron Bull agrees. 

A man thought he'd make a pet of the Iron Bull once. A kind of power kick, getting the savage to kneel to you. Worked out pretty well for the Iron Bull. Not so well for the guy.

Dorian's eyes are closed, his lips parted. 

He says, "It didn't—appeal to me. That sort of life. To keep someone contracted to service me, for me to pretend to have some sort of a relationship with as I ignored my wife and children."

Sighs.

"I don't pretend that I've never traded in sex as such," he says. "You know better. Transactions are quite acceptable. With people I tolerate, at any rate. Such arrangements are common enough, among young persons of my class. I am a little old for it, possibly; one should have made one's alliances by now."

There is a silence, perhaps left for protests, an opportunity to fight. Perhaps only to consider his words. The Iron Bull doesn't bother to fill it for him.

Dorian says, "I should hate to buy an illusion of, well. An illusion of love. And I could _not_ tolerate a marriage, you see—my egotism is quite limitless, as my father would have it."

There's an emphasis on the word father, like Dorian has to force himself to say it. Fast words again. It's not that he talks more when he's drunk, but there's more content to his words, less of a studied display.

Or maybe that's the impression he's working on giving.

File away the pieces.

"Tolerated, is it?" the Iron Bull says. "Thought you were waiting for me to stab you in the back."

"Oh," Dorian says. "I am. But I'm sure you'll do it very attractively."

The Iron Bull laughs.

Dorian lights another cigarette. A deep drag.

"I was engaged," he says. "Am, possibly. A perfectly lovely woman, were it not for the fact that women are simply not for me."

"Running from your wedding?" the Iron Bull asks.

"Oh, yes," Dorian says. "I tell you, I will never marry. Not something my family could understand, of course. I am the only child. Perhaps your sources told you all of this, too?"

"Nah," the Iron Bull says, with complete truth. "No sources like that. Krem recognised you, checked you out when I dragged you over to Stitches' place. Gotta make sure. You could've been anyone. That's it."

"Hmm," Dorian says.

His body relaxes against the Iron Bull's side, not so much relief as—what? Contact-seeking?

Theory: Dorian Pavus wants to be admired. To be loved. 

Will take being fucked by someone who's into him, like it's the next best thing.

Dorian takes a drag from his cigarette again. The glow of it in the dim room.

Turns his face up to the Iron Bull, like an invitation. Lips parted.

The curl of smoke.

The Iron Bull breathes in tobacco, breathes in Dorian. Their lips only millimetres apart.

For a searing moment, it seems like it's going to turn into a kiss.

But Dorian slips away. Sinks lower on the mattress.

"Water," the Iron Bull says. Finds his throat dry.

He's into people, but he's sure as shit not usually into people like this. A weird unfamiliar thing, uncontrolled, wrapped dizzily up in alcohol and dark spaces. Fond where he's meant to be annoyed.

Maybe that's just part of falling apart.

He heaves himself up with a groan, goes to get water, get some space, get his head on straight. Nice idea, though it doesn't really help.

The taste of Dorian lingers in his mouth, even through the shitty alcohol. Even though they didn't kiss.

 

 

The water is lukewarm, but it's still a relief. Dorian seems to agree, gulps it down greedily. 

"What are we doing here, precisely?" he asks.

Could pretend to misunderstand. Not much point. 

"Not doing a great job at deciding where we stand," the Iron Bull says. "You want to fuck? Not do you think I want to. Do you?"

"Oh," Dorian says. A shuddering breath. "Yes, of course I do. I wouldn't have fucked you the first time if I didn't want to, however useful you are. I can play all sorts of games."

Another sly look, inviting. 

"Don't know if we should anyway," the Iron Bull says. "Gonna be stuck with each other for a while. Might get messy."

"I was under the impression that Qunari don't connect sex and feelings," Dorian says. 

"Qunari don't connect sex with trained professionals with feelings," the Iron Bull says, with careful emphasis. "Why do you think that system exists? They can get tangled up in personal shit like anyone else. You want a hate-fuck or a bit of escapism, but it's going to get claustrophobic later." If Dorian's as bad as he's betting at keeping feelings and sex separate. If the knot of desire inside the Iron Bull means what he thinks it means.

"I imagine it will get claustrophobic regardless," Dorian says. "Is it wrong to want a little escapism? My life is hardly going according to plan at this particular moment."

The Iron Bull can relate to that, at least.

"Nah, it's not wrong," the Iron Bull says. If he was treating this as a job, he'd invite a kiss now, turn himself towards Dorian, leave himself open. They'd fuck, quick and fumbling and bordering on desperate, and Dorian would feel indulged, feel wanted. Begin, maybe, after a few more performances, to feel secure.

Why does he stay motionless?

"But you aren't going to indulge me," Dorian says, sighs. "Very well. A shame. You're quite magnificent, in a deadly sort of way. I admit, I had more fun in bed with you than I've had in some time."

"Still playing, huh," the Iron Bull says.

"Well, perhaps. A little. But still, you're very good."

Tension, an edge of irritation to the words. Another cigarette, and shit, he must be feeling a mess to smoke like this.

"Why does Stitches think you're alright?" the Iron Bull asks. "Stitches hates people."

"What a charming trait in a medic," Dorian says.

"Not like that. Doesn't trust them. Doesn't make friends of them. What did you tell him?"

The heel of Dorian's hand pressed to his forehead, fingers curled tight around the cigarette. Tired, tired and angry.

"You can't possibly be telling me that he hasn't given you a full report," he says. "I'm certainly not fool enough to imagine that I told him anything in confidence."

"Shows what you know," the Iron Bull says. "He kept your secrets. Inconvenient, honestly. Told me to ask you."

Dorian's laugh is a hysterical thing, humourless. "I don't want to say any of it again," he says. "I'll tell him so myself. Where did you put the bottle? I'm beginning to feel entirely too sober for comfort."

The Iron Bull passes him the bottle.

He drinks.

He says, "I don't—oh, damn it all—I don't know if I'm actually a person."

Closes his eyes, head thrown back against the wall. His throat works as he swallows, laboured.

Begins, silently, to cry. 

Well.

Dorian thinks—what, that he might be synthetic? Created, rather than born?

If he was treating this as a job, he'd push. 

If this was a job, though, he'd be under pressure to get something for his superiors by now.

As it is, he's got time.

Weird dissonance to the thought.

The collapse of routine. Danger, here; danger beyond anything external that Dorian or the people after Dorian could possibly throw at him.

"Alright," the Iron Bull says, against his better judgement. "Think you've had enough after all."

An arm around Dorian's shoulder, although Dorian's holding himself kind of stiffly.

"More than enough," Dorian says, and you wouldn't know from the words what a mess he looks. "And you won't even fuck me. Wretched man."

"Not today," the Iron Bull says.

Dorian's mouth twists. Irritation, again.

"Let's get some rest," the Iron Bull says. "Skinner can take care of anyone who tries to start shit out there. Better sober up before Krem drags us onto a shuttle. I'm not interested in puking."

"Wretched," Dorian says again, but he lets the Iron Bull put the bottle away; curls himself up on a mattress while the Iron Bull makes sure everything's packed down well enough for a quick exit if they need one.

By the time the Iron Bull gets back with blankets, he's either passed out or doing a good job of looking like it, breathing even but shoulders still tense.

The Iron Bull has less luck.

On the ceiling, dark cracks in old plaster spread like a map, rivers and lakes, forests of dampness. Tropical Seheron swelters. 

Caught out. Blood on the leaves.

Involuntary recall.

These things are not meant to be his.

Why do they return?


	4. Contraband

_Well, Dorian said, hasn't this been a charming conversation._

_Books on the desk alongside the display screen. Obscure things, or private things. Things better disconnected from any possible network. He ran his fingers over the glossy surface of the desk, polished wood, leather worn smooth with years of use. Unscratched. Always so careful._

_It was only habit to glance at the papers, and Dorian would have thought little of what he saw—only when he looked up, father's shoulders had stiffened minutely._

_A little heavy, Dorian said. For evening reading._

_I am commissioned to write a report for the Lucerni, father said, as though it were nothing to him; an important job, but a little dull. But one does not admire a man for years and fight with him for almost as many without gaining a certain ability to recognise nuances of tone._

_Goodness, Dorian said. The ethics of synthetic memory implants? What does Mae have to say on the topic?_

_Not a great deal, I think, beyond disapproval, father said. I presume that is why she handed it to me._

_Ah, yes, Dorian said. Naturally._

_It was the case study that caught his eye in particular—it must have been—surely._

_Father, he said, his voice very level, is the correction of deviance really a topic for some tedious commissioned report?_

_Dorian, his father said, and it was his voice that broke, his voice, when it should have been Dorian's—_

_And then—_

_And then—_

_And then what?_

 

 

It's the middle of the night when Krem gets back, in no hurry—no need to grab shit and run, then. Good thing too; the Iron Bull's still a bit hazy, got a headache nagging at the back of his skull.

"Got us a ride," Krem says. "Sera's girl is headed for Nevarra, probably best not to ask what for. Sera'll get us upwell."

The Iron Bull laughs. "What, seriously?"

"Yeah. Why?"

"Ah, she was pissing Dorian off when I picked him up."

That gets Krem laughing too. "Damn. Well, nothing boring about this ride. Better go wake him up if he's not up yet, we'll head out soon. I'll go get Rocky and Stitches to sort through their crap, sell whatever we don't need. Shuttle's not that big."

Back in the bedroom, Dorian is drifting awake, maybe disturbed by the noise Krem made coming in. Probably wasn't sleeping that deeply to begin with.

"We're in luck," the Iron Bull says. "Come on. There's still a flask of tea left."

"What a delightful proposition," Dorian says. Accepts the Iron Bull's hand and hauls himself upright.

Sleep-warm skin, held for a moment too long. Dorian looks at their joined hands, and only frowns.

Basic rations from a packet that looks like it's Tevinter military issue aren't a great start to their off-rhythm day, but they settle the stomach a bit. The tea's still hot, at least. Then it's the work of sorting and re-packing, on and on. Irritable discussions in circles about where to send what.

Dorian, a surprise: "I have a friend. She'll be more than happy to make use of two flyers and a collection of medical supplies. And she'll pay in advance on my word, if that will do? Not to me, of course, that would be foolish. But surely it's quite reasonable for her to deal with such a, ah, fine group of contractors."

Everyone stares. It's kind of comical, to be honest.

"Fucking shem," Skinner says, and throws down her pack, which is pretty much agreement by her standards.

"No," Krem says. "They'll put it together, the lot who're after you. The flyer they chased, our guys. Not hard to put it together, if they're smart. Then they'll know we're bailing, and besides, where will your friend be?"

"In no more trouble than usual, to be frank," Dorian says. "Sometimes I think she enjoys it. But as to the other point, you must have some system of proxies. You can't tell me you're so unprofessional that those could be traced in the immediate future."

Skinner actually laughs at that. "Boss, you're slipping. Some fucking job this is. He's got you figured out."

"Didn't try to stop him," the Iron Bull says, stung. "It's not like that."

Dorian waves a dismissive hand. "I merely have particular reason to be alert."

"You don't give the boss enough credit if you think he would usually let someone like you see his hand."

"And yet," Dorian says, "here we are." He smiles brightly at the Iron Bull.

"We've had some conversations," the Iron Bull says. "Just do it, better to get out of here quickly. Dorian, sort the details out with Krem and he'll go up to the lower city to fix it. Got a signal to get her attention discreetly, right?"

"Of course," Dorian says, with every appearance of offense at the merest suggestion he might not.

So here's something: Dorian wasn't only trying to play the Iron Bull that first night out of desperation. It's a thing he does, in some capacity; has systems, works with a friend.

Alright. Another piece.

Grim shakes his head, gives the Iron Bull a reproachful look.

"No," the Iron Bull says. "I'm not."

"Yeah, sure," Dalish says, and slams a case shut so hard that the walls rattle.

 

 

Mid-morning, and they blink in the light as they come up to ground level. A pick-up from just outside a different unchained gateway, higher up, an old hillside obscured by the buildings that crowd it. The grey and white bulk of the shuttle hides them from view, screening off the street beyond. No craft passes overhead.

The Iron Bull holds onto his tension, lets it thrum through him and become readiness. Nods to Krem and gets a nod back; yeah, I'm watching, I'm on alert.

The sun is a pale diffuse disc, filtered through a haze of fog.

And then they're aboard, throwing themselves hastily into the rows of seats that line the inside of the shuttle, bags tied down between. Everything sensitive shoved under the floor into a space that definitely isn't accessible on regular shuttles, even though this one looks to be hired.

And, of course, there's Sera, grinning over her shoulder at them in a way that promises a hell of a ride, pursuit or no.

Her eyes light up when she sees Dorian.

"You're the bee girl," Dorian exclaims, in sudden recognition.

"Wow," Sera says. "Fancypants! This'll be fun, yeah? You and me after all."

She manages to make it into a threat.

"Whatever did I do to deserve this," Dorian says; and then, quickly, "no, I beg of you, don't answer."

"Bathed in gold like a proper tit," Sera says. "Alright! Let's go!"

A rough acceleration on a steady upward curve. The shuttle shudders.

"Is this contraption safe?" Dorian asks. "I hate to ask, only I had rather hoped to make it to the station in one piece. A quaint idea, I suppose."

"It's safe, alright?" Sera says. "You always like this?"

"Yes," Dorian says. "I'm told it's incurable."

"We still looking good, Krem?" the Iron Bull asks.

"Yeah, so far," Krem says.

"I should think it'll be quite all right," Dorian says. "It's not—hm. It's not like capturing a fugitive. He can't afford to be too high-profile about it."

But he's still worried about something. 

‹‹ And the bit you're not telling us? ›› the Iron Bull asks silently.

‹‹ Is strictly personal, ›› Dorian says, ‹‹ and in no way involves us getting arrested or shot at between here and the station. ››

‹‹ And after? ››

‹‹ Is after, ›› Dorian says. Still silent, but his eyebrows are drawn down irritably. ‹‹ And very much my own problem to solve. None of you will be inconvenienced. ››

He shoots the Iron Bull a quick glance, meaningful. Later. Please. Stitches, the Iron Bull notes, is paying especially close attention. To the movement of Dorian's fingers. To his expression. Speculative.

I don't know if I'm actually a person. Dorian crying in the dark, baffling in his vulnerability.

‹‹ Sure, ›› the Iron Bull says. ‹‹ Your business. ››

Dorian sighs, picking at the hem of his jacket. "How delightful all of this is," he says aloud. "I can't believe I never tried being a fugitive before. How thrilling."

Skinner makes a noise of disgust in her throat. Krem limits himself to a very, very blank expression.

"Alright," Sera calls, "losing gravity soon. Hold on to your bits and your breakfast."

 

 

Floating blackness, for one instant. 

The shuttle's inner lights flicker back into uncertain life.

"Dragons," Dorian says, "but I do find zero gravity loathsome."

Grim's the one looking really green around the edges, though. The Iron Bull's not feeling so hot himself, if he's honest—not sickness, not really. Only: 

Floating blackness.

Something on the edge of his mind: a twisting, thrashing thing.

The Iron Bull swallows against it, throat tight, bitterness on the back of his tongue.

It's a short journey, he tells himself. Not far to go now. Then it'll be artificial gravity and solid footing and the illusion of a bit more distance between him and the void.

No windows, just display panels for Sera to adjust up front. And still in the Iron Bull's mind, there are stars, and the dark bulk of a ship eclipsing them.

‹‹ Boss, ›› Krem says in his head, ‹‹ you sure about this? ››

‹‹ No, ›› the Iron Bull replies. ‹‹ But if he thought we were going to get shot down or arrested right now, he'd say so. He doesn't want to die, and he sure as shit doesn't want to go home. Worry about our backs once we're on the station. You got an eye on traffic still? ››

Krem says, ‹‹ Yeah. Not much to see. Station's given clearance. Could be tailed, but nothing to do about that. ››

Dorian has his eyes closed, holds his entire body in tense stillness; not an alert stillness so much as a desperate one, the stillness of an animal under bright lights.

"Dorian," the Iron Bull says. "You wanna tell us anything else, now would be good."

Dorian shakes his head, a quick tight movement. Silently: ‹‹ Allow me my panic attack in peace, if you would. ››

The words would be unsteady if they were spoken aloud, which is probably why they aren't. Yeah, the rise and fall of his chest isn't quite right, hyperventilation forcibly suppressed.

Dorian Pavus hates to show weakness. Not much of a speculation; it's a fact that could apply to anyone from the Palaces. But he's sure as fuck not doing well at keeping a lid on it right now.

‹‹ Sorry, ›› the Iron Bull says. ‹‹ Just gotta check. Still good for the plan once we dock? ››

"I won't be any trouble," Dorian says aloud, and takes a deep breath, and manages to open his eyes and smirk pretty convincingly at the Iron Bull.

 

 

 _No trouble_ is relative.

There's no dressing Dorian down and passing him off as insignificant. He is known here, in the mingled populace of the 13th station; recognised by his peers and placed correctly on the social ladder by those who, by Tevinter rules, are counted as beneath him. Taking him straight aboard Dagna's ship is no good.

"Well then," Dorian says, fully aristocratic, unspeakably haughty. "I thank you for your services. If I could perhaps persuade one of your men to carry my luggage, and then I will leave you to your business."

"Fucking Altus," Krem says. "I'll do it, I guess. If that's to your satisfaction."

"It's to mine," the Iron Bull says. "So he'll have to deal. Go haul his crap for him, and meet me back at the ship before evening prayers get going."

"I should have paid you extra for courtesy after all," Dorian says. "Dragons preserve us, I have no idea what I expected."

Krem grabs Dorian's bag for him, and trails after Dorian, who sweeps away like he owns the place.

Two hours to evening prayer, and they really need to be off the station by then or they'll be stuck for a few hours more. Krem and Dorian get to play the game of being seen and not seen in turn, and Dorian had better be as good at it as he claims.

They leave everything they don't want going through security, on Sera's smug insistence; work on hauling the rest of it around from the shuttle bay to the main docks, where an inelegant-looking cruiser detailed in dawnstone is waiting for them. By its gangway, Dagna is tapping away furiously at a datapad and doing a pretty good job of not seeming to look for them. She apparently favours pretty clothes and also ridiculous hair-clips, which the Iron Bull has a strong suspicion Sera buys for her. A round face, wide-eyed.

"Oh, good," she says, "you're finally here. You should be quick about loading up, I'm so tired of waiting around here. Oh, I don't mean the station is bad at all! I love it. But the in-between, you know? Not coming or going. I never know what to do with myself."

The comment about the station she addresses pretty directly into thin air—to the station AI, he can only assume.

Stitches and Grim get to work carrying stuff aboard. There's not too much of it, between the quick sale of everything that wasn't immediately necessary and the further legal-illicit split. 

Dagna looks up at him with a smile which is just a little bit too delighted. "Are you ready to work for the advancement of science, then?"

The Iron Bull laughs. "Yeah, I guess I am."

He's still wondering whether it's actually a good idea to let Dagna and Rocky spend time travelling together, but done is done.

According to the contract on the pad that Dagna hands up to him, the Chargers are now officially security for a delicate piece of archaeological retrieval in Nessum and onward transport into Nevarra, as allowed for by the 27th Border Systems Treaty for the Preservation of Cultural Heritage.

He raises his one eyebrow at that, but signs it without comment. Maybe the station AI likes Dagna, but he's got no reason to think it likes him.

Up onto the ship at last, into relative privacy.

"Station will get him out of sight and let them through the maintenance corridors," Dagna says, as though this is the most normal thing in the universe. "I don't think it'll take too long, but it depends how quickly your job finds somewhere to check in for appearances."

"Station," the Iron Bull says.

"Oh, yes, Station likes it if you ask nicely. And I get it parts for the maintenance of the lower levels. The administration up here doesn't care about that any more than they care about the lower city downwell. They're all about keeping the 13th Palace nice and shiny."

"You make deals with the station AI," the Iron Bull says flatly.

"Yes," Dagna says. "Is there something wrong with that?"

"Only that it shouldn't be possible," the Iron Bull says. "I know stations like some people more than others, but they still have limits."

"Do they?" Dagna says. "That's nice."

 

 

Krem's back before too much longer, minus Dorian's bag and with a relieved expression on his face.

"Don't even know what I think of him," he announces. "One minute he's a prat, and then he's almost alright."

"He's alright," Stitches says. "Give him some time."

"What the fuck do you know about him that the rest of us don't," Krem says.

Stitches shrugs. "Talked to him more."

"Right," Krem says. "Well, he'll be along, I guess. Seemed to know what he was meant to do."

"Station should be giving him instructions," Dagna says. "If he can listen, he'll be fine. Tea?"

"Only if there's alcohol in it," Krem says.

Grim offers his little hip-flask without comment.

"Cheers," Krem says.

Dagna's tea is delicate and a little bit floral. Not actually a style the Iron Bull recognises, but good. You never really know what you're going to get when someone offers tea. Everyone mixes it up from different crap. Nice to be surprised in a good way for once.

So there's that. Tea's something to do with the hands, wards against the worst of the restlessness. And there's the beginnings of unpacking, figuring out cabin space. It's not a huge ship, but it's got several partitioned sleeping areas, and his boys are pretty good at sharing. Dalish and Skinner and Rocky, Stitches and Grim and Krem.

"You get your own," Krem says. "Nobody wants to listen to you snore. Nobody wants to get brained by your sodding horns in the middle of the night, either."

"You get Dorian, then," the Iron Bull says.

Krem raises an eyebrow. "Really. Not you?"

The Iron Bull shrugs. "If he says so."

"Alright," Krem says. Skeptical, of course.

"You don't need to look like that, Krem," the Iron Bull says. "How many people have I fucked more than once, as long as you've known me?"

"Maker," Krem says. "Are we doing this, Chief? Really?"

Dagna snorts laughter, and excuses herself. Probably really has something to get done; she's looking plenty curious.

"It's not that kind of job right now," the Iron Bull says.

Krem's expression sours. "It's not a damn job at all," he says, and is correct. Catalogue the emotions. Exasperation in the upturn of his voice. Anger in the twist of his lips. Worry between the eyes. "You're treating him more like one of us than like a mark, except you don't make that hopeless face at any of us. You're not going to get anything from him that's got any worth for you any more, not by playing him. Did you know he sold his birthright? That's how he paid Stitches. Pretty sure he spent the last of it putting on a show of being on holiday on our way to the hotel he's not even staying at."

The Iron Bull didn't know. Should have known. Even if Dorian wouldn't have been wearing it in the lower city, he should've pinned it to his lapel before they hauled themselves off the shuttle. Not like him to miss a thing like that.

Shit.

And in the void, a thread unravels. Floating blackness.

He should find space comfortable. A part of his role. There's nothing to struggle against.

But here—

"I don't know any other way," the Iron Bull says. "I can only—crap. I can only do what I was made to do. You know that." The same conversation again and again. He moves only in circles; no forward motion left. He changes course only because of collision.

"That's bullshit," Skinner says. Sharp. "How can you say that, after—"

But Krem shoots her a quick look and she subsides. Shrugs.

"It _is_ bullshit," she says.

"After what, Skinner?" the Iron Bull asks.

"Nothing," she says. Spits the word, defiant. Defying him? Defying Krem?

The Iron Bull is developing a headache, the air unfamiliar, the atmosphere tense. Wants to push, but there's that damn dizzy void, right there, waiting.

He orbits it, a meteor around a black hole. From outside the event horizon, you don't know what's in there. 

From inside, it's too late.

Krem sighs. Says, "Twenty until evening prayer. He's cutting it close. No idea where Sera is, either."

"Sera will be here," Dagna says, returning. "I'm just going to go down to the docks and see if Station has anything to say. I'm sure it's all fine. Nothing to worry about!"

"That chirpy front of yours isn't ever so confidence-inspiring," Dalish says. "I should know."

"I don't know what you mean," Dagna says brightly. "I'm just a natural optimist." And she swings herself down onto the ladder that leads to the gangway, vanishes again from view.

"Go get your cabins in order," the Iron Bull tells the Chargers. "You've got time to give me shit, you've got time to lock everything down for launch."

And so there's just him, pacing. Somewhere, he's got to hope, Dorian is making his way through silent maintenance corridors, guided along by a helpful AI. Lot of assumptions there for everyone. They've got to believe in Station, and in Dagna, and in Dorian.

Dorian's got to believe in Station, and in them.

The Iron Bull wouldn't exactly blame him if he'd decided to ditch them after all. Would probably make life a damn sight easier for them as well.

But he's still going in circles. 

What does he do without Dorian to assess? He's only a failing body adrift in space otherwise, him and Dorian's half-unravelled secrets, all tangled up together.

But here:

Voices from the direction of the gangway, Dagna's bright, the other aristocratic, amused.

Dorian.

Dorian, after all.

The shudder and thud of the gangway disengaging, and there's Dagna up the ladder; and there's Dorian, incongruous in blue dock overalls, coming the long way 'round with a larger bag than the one he left the shuttle with.

"Alright, Sera," Dagna shouts. "Soon as we're cleared!"

And how long has Sera been up there, exactly? What's her secret? Sera does what Sera pleases, does it for the pleasure of it, her morality flexible. 

The question is only the how.

But she's aboard now, anyway; getting the engines going, coaxing the ship into readiness.

"Dragons," Dorian mutters; tucks his bag into place and clips it fast, strips off the overalls in quick, surprisingly practiced gestures to leave himself in a light sleeveless shirt and loose trousers. Throws himself down next to the Iron Bull, bare arm to bare arm. "I'll avoid doing that again if I can."

"Which bit?" the Iron Bull asks.

"Any of it," Dorian says. "But particularly pretending to care about which tea-set I buy for the rooms I won't be using while wondering if anyone is going to assassinate me or knock me over the head to drag me home. Honestly, playing hide and seek with workers in the maintenance corridors was a relief."

"Hey, you got a tea-set out of it," the Iron Bull says. "You get a pretty one?"

That gets him a smile. "It's a little pink, perhaps," Dorian says. "But quite fine. And I have more than one and a half sets of clothing now."

"Nothing wrong with pink," the Iron Bull says. "It's pretty."

And they're moving. The slight lurch of the clamps disengaging.

Got it.

"Just barely," Dagna says. "We made it close so there wouldn't be as many people around when Dorian boarded. Only Andrastian workers, really. And not many, not here."

Behind them on the station, temple bells will be ringing now. Flowers, beads and dragons' bones. No time for a ship to follow them with the station pausing for worship; hopefully nobody to study their trajectory too closely as they pick their gate.

"You need to do a private prayer?" the Iron Bull asks, although Dorian has so far shown no signs of devotion to the Dragons beyond taking their name in vain a great deal.

"No," Dorian says. Hesitates. "No, I—I think not."

"It's fine," the Iron Bull says. "Not gonna run screaming."

"How progressive," Dorian says. "But no, all the same."

"Half a day to the gate," Dagna says. "Then it should be dull for a bit. Bad for me, but you look as though you might need it."

"I never thought I would say this," Dorian says, "but you're quite right. A little dullness sounds like just the thing."

His skin is warm against the Iron Bull's.

Physical memory in a jolt, Dorian's spine arching as the Iron Bull grinds his cock in slow deep movements inside him. Heat on the tips of his fingers, dragging down the Iron Bull's chest.

File it away. Put it aside with all the others. It doesn't belong. 

It serves no purpose.

Around them, the ship sinks into steady motion that is almost the same as stillness. The engines hum, a gentle background noise.

Dorian drags himself to his feet. "I could do with cleaning up properly," he says. "If that's quite alright."

Dagna waves in the direction of the corridor which is lined with living quarters. "All the way to the back."

"I will offer the briefest of prayers after all," Dorian says, "to whichever Dragon it is who takes responsibility for personal hygiene. Urthemiel, perhaps, although considering the state of the places I've found myself in lately, perhaps Razikale would do as well. It seems to be more of a carefully guarded secret than I believed."

"I'll get a friend of mine to tell you about Dust Town one day," Dagna calls after him. "It's worse than it sounds."

"Orzammar," the Iron Bull says. "Or just know people from there?"

"Orzammar as your dwarven friend," Dagna says. "So I can't go back, obviously, even if I wanted to. Did you know he blew up a part of the temple in my city?"

"Yeah, we've talked about it," the Iron Bull says. "Everyone knows that story, huh?"

"Oh, no," Dagna says. "Officially it definitely never happened. But if you don't care about annoying people you can find out about all sorts of things."

"Right," the Iron Bull says. "What did you blow up?"

"The concept of traditional caste roles, and also my father's house, twice," Dagna says sweetly. "Would you like a biscuit?"

"I don't know," the Iron Bull says, "will it explode?"

"Only if Sera doesn't like you," Dagna says. "Excuse me, I have to go and see what she's up to, and also look in on my stuff."

That's pretty pointedly vague. Alright.

"I'll go make sure my boys are in check, then," the Iron Bull says, and takes a biscuit.

Bit weird, but not bad. 

 

 

Skinner, Dalish and Rocky are casting dice and bickering, which doesn't seem like an occupation the Iron Bull needs to worry about. In the other compartment given over to the Chargers, conversation is ongoing, a bit more intent than he'd really like.

That it cuts off quickly when he appears in the doorway isn't a great sign either.

"What, you planning a mutiny?" he asks Krem.

"Just talking shit," Krem says. "You know you're the biggest idiot any of us have ever met? Pretty impressive, considering we've been to Val Royeaux."

"What," the Iron Bull says, "not Dorian?"

" _Pavus,_ " Krem says, "is probably smarter than's good for him. He's not stupid. Just don't trust him, is all."

He's not stupid, but he put himself at the Iron Bull's mercy without knowing a damn thing about him.

Mind you, Krem doesn't know how that bit went down.

"So Stitches hasn't told you how Dorian charmed him either?"

"Have you ever heard of medical confidentiality?" Stitches says amiably, as though he hasn't ratted out a dozen minor aristocrats to the Iron Bull in the past.

"Bit late for ethics," Krem says.

Stitches shrugs. "Did you ask him yet?"

"Kind of," the Iron Bull says. "It's a work in progress. Figured I'd let the guy clean up first. Maybe it'll make him more charitable."

"Hah," Krem says.

"Hey," the Iron Bull says. "It _could._ "

Almost, almost normal.


	5. In Between

_Memory:_

_There was a party. There were so very many parties._

_Do you know, Mae said, smiling a terribly charming smile, I don't think the gentleman is quite taking us seriously._

_I suppose, my dear, Dorian said, that must be because we're so entirely frivolous._

_Laughter._

_Well, and who would care to be serious? Mae asked. All this politicking! Goodness._

_And yet I seem to recall your introducing a number of quite scandalous bills this last season, Iunius said._

_Darling! A peal of clear laughter from Mae. How else is one meant to keep oneself interesting?_

_Pavus here seems to contrive well enough, Iunius said, without making a political spectacle of himself._

_No indeed, Dorian said. Smiled a slow smile, inviting. I prefer to provide quite another sort of entertainment._

_And he did, later—didn't he?_

_Somebody else's desk, hands sliding on the general debris of a well-used work space. Not alone, no—but—_

_A thread that wouldn't unravel._

_There was deception. They talked, perhaps? No, not talking—_

_Dorian's fingers closed around a datachip. Sleight of hand._

_Nothing one didn't enjoy, but nothing one didn't gain by. But what—_

_Details slid from him, a dream; certainty and loss at once. Try to catch it—_

_But there was Mae, later, admiring his prize; he knew that, held it with clarity._

_Twisted in his sheets, gasping in the dark, Dorian scrambled blindly after more of them, those fragments of memory, of being. Parties and garden walks and endless circle lessons. A first kiss under the awning of the café by the beech trees in the second west quarter, late at night—this part hazy, a sensation with no image. Clarity, though, to the Hierophant laying out rows of tools and implants in the early morning sun. Rites of death, heavy with incense. Rites of life, stepping through the veils of fire._

_The lake. The lake. The lake. Water glittering in the afternoon sun, unbeautiful, made flat by overexposure. The towers of Qarinus a dull red on the horizon._

_Do I remember, who am I, what—_

_A man, soft and stocky and gorgeous, spread out on his back in a windowless room. Empty glasses of wine. Laughter. His naked chest, thick with hair. His legs parted easily, unashamed. And Dorian—_

_And Dorian—_

_Grasped the memory, at last. A prize from a forbidden country, from the other side of the true veil which nobody could touch._

_Rilienus, crying out at Dorian's hand on his cock, at Dorian's hand on his chest, nails scratching, teasing at his nipples. His back arching. Please—_

_And Dorian himself, younger, more idealistic, entirely in love, watching his face in amazement._

 

 

It's Dorian who comes to him, in the end. Pretty good way for things to be; keeps Dorian from feeling like the Iron Bull is crowding him, makes him feel like he's setting the pace.

If it were really strategy, it would've been a decent one.

"So," the Iron Bull says. "Why are you running from Minrathous really? Gonna tell me, now we're out?"

Dorian, in new clothes, soft green and grey in layers, has regained his balance. Smiles with his fingers pressed to his lips, secretive, flirtatious.

"Oh," he says, "no, no. There's still time for you to throw me out of an airlock before we ever make the gate, and frankly I would rather die floating in the inbetween than in Minrathous territory."

"Nobody's throwing anyone out of an airlock," the Iron Bull says. "You want, I can tie you up in the hold, but to be honest, if I'm gonna tie you up at all I can think of better contexts. Stitches doesn't think you're a risk like that, and he's pretty fucking smart."

"I thought we weren't having sex," Dorian says. "Really. How inconsistent."

"Didn't say never," the Iron Bull says. "You were wasted. So was I."

"And now we aren't," Dorian says.

He steps fully into the Iron Bull's cabin, hits the door button decisively.

Settles himself cross-legged on the Iron Bull's bed. Not pushing for sex, not denying the possibility.

He favours shirts and jackets that sit high in the collar but open at the throat. A lack of symmetry. Subtly patterned fabrics. It's the openness of his posture that really captures the Iron Bull, though. Shoulders relaxed, hands loose on his lap. Unselfconscious about the bruise still decorating his neck, shading yellow at the edges now. It's almost framed, in fact, by the way he wears his clothes.

"You think," Dorian says easily, smiling at the direction of the Iron Bull's gaze, "that you have me. That you have deciphered my story and you're simply waiting for me to tell you, for confirmation and to let you know that I trust you. Then perhaps we'll fuck to cement the idea of trust. A nice little piece of intimacy."

"Alright," the Iron Bull says, neutral. "What do I think I know?"

"That I'm a synthetic human," Dorian says. 

Just like that.

"Are you?"

A laugh. "I don't actually trust you," Dorian says. "Just to be clear."

"Lies are fine too."

"Ah, yes," Dorian says. "Every piece a clue."

"Yeah," the Iron Bull says. "Don't tell me you're not doing the same."

"Naturally I'm doing the same," Dorian says. "Alas for my misspent youth—I wasn't always such a suspicious creature. You could have played quite the game with my younger self. Run rings around me, and my interest stretching no further than your ludicrous muscles."

Unlikely. Front after front.

"Used to be the person you were playing when we met, huh?"

"Approximately," Dorian says.

"What happened to that guy, then?"

"What happens to anyone? Family, politics. A little blood."

He waves a hand in a broad gesture of dismissal.

"That's pretty vague."

"Yes," Dorian agrees. "It certainly is."

The Iron Bull waits. Settles himself into his desk chair, watches.

Dorian looks back at him, raises his chin. Defiant. "My father thought he would correct my regrettable personality flaws by force, in order to secure both the respectability of the family and the procurement of a blood heir. Reprogramming, by some definitions. Murder, of course, by others. It isn't even close to legal to attempt that sort of transfer and modification process, although enforcement of the law is of course selective. It would certainly have destroyed my actual body, necessitating a synthetic replacement. Discovering this, I left. Will that do?"

He throws it at the Iron Bull like an accusation, even though it's definitely at least a partial confession.

"Yeah," the Iron Bull says. "Crap. He wanted to replace you. _Tevinter._ "

"Tevinter," Dorian agrees. "I love it dearly, you must understand, but I may yet set the Magisterium on fire. In any case, I think that's quite enough of this charming little heart to heart. You have my tragic backstory, I have nothing, and you haven't even offered me a drink."

The openness is gone from his posture now. He swallows. His fingers twist.

"Hey," the Iron Bull says, "you don't have to pretend it's fine. Getting fucked over by family, that's got to hurt."

"That's my business, I believe," Dorian says, but softly. His eyes are closed, his head turned slightly away. "I appreciate your attempts, for all I doubt your motives. All the same, could we not?"

"Sure," the Iron Bull says. "Don't worry about it."

"Although, on the subject of motives—" Dorian hesitates. He's looking brighter already, has shoved through whatever wave of emotion he was riding out, put it all away. "I understand that you were hoping to win something from me. Money, I thought. Perhaps the opportunity to blackmail my father, which I grant I have given you more than enough material for. But you hardly seem committed to digging out my darkest secrets. Even allowing for misdirection, your attempts have been—I should say cursory."

"Going to hurt a guy's pride, talking like that," the Iron Bull says.

"Am I really," Dorian says. "You're Tal-Vashoth, you said—meaning you were at some point Qunari?"

"That's pretty much what it means, yeah," the Iron Bull says.

"I am of course aware," Dorian says, "that most people who claim to have left the Qun genuinely have done so, for a very large number of compelling reasons. And yet I don't quite believe you. You, my friend, are avoiding a direct answer."

"I'm not Qunari," the Iron Bull says, and that's easy, that's straightforward, no reason to think that'll set Dorian off on another unnervingly intuitive leap. It's true, after all. He never was. He's also not really Tal-Vashoth, but that's a whole other mess.

Dorian is still looking thoughtful. But he shakes his head in dismissal after another moment. "I don't suppose it matters so very much," he says. "I'm nobody of importance—politically speaking, I mean. In other respects, quite notably magnificent. I wish you the best of luck, should you be trying to extract information about the state of the Magisterium."

He talks a lot. Yeah, when he's drunk; when he's on edge, too. Talks a lot when he's thinking, uses it to cover the space calculation takes. 

Fuck, but the Iron Bull _likes_ that. It's clever, distracting, refocuses attention.

"Yeah," he says. "You're pretty magnificent."

A flicker of a smile.

Dorian stands.

"If we're going to do nothing but needle one another, I'm going to take myself up to the top level," he says. "Dagna promised me experimental technology, and Sera promised me a very good viewing platform from which to make some final obscene gestures at the planet."

"Hardly be able to see it from all the way out here," the Iron Bull says. "Just some insignificant little blob."

"I know," Dorian says. "It's a lovely thought, in its way. One ought to make all of my people take a good long look at it from that perspective, yes?"

 

 

It's been years now by any measure since the Iron Bull was used to space travel. Measure it by Krem's words, measure it by the deepening lines on Stitches' face. But all the same, details are familiar: the processed air, the light vibration of the ship around him that's like life, a thing almost akin to himself. Dagna's ship has an AI, even, though it doesn't have an Avatar—that part's Qunari tech, guarded well. Horrifying, maybe, from some angles. Shame, though, in a way—would've been company, something person-shaped that got it. 

Qunari ships don't use the gates, either. Jump by themselves. Gates are old Bas shit, suboptimal and suspect. But all the same: he still recognises the very slight lurch of passage from space to unspace, the in-between void. Is surprised by the feeling it inspires in him, confusion and sadness and maybe a little bit of relief.

He never expected to leave Minrathous City again, let alone the entire territory. 

"Oh, come off it," Krem says. "Don't tell me you're going to _miss_ it. Is it the murder or the smell of sewage? The bullshit gender roles? Can't be the upper class tits, you've still got one of those."

The Iron Bull shakes his head. "Just weird. Been there a long time, right? Too long, maybe, like you guys kept telling me."

A withering look from Skinner. She was good at them when they met, and she's only refined the skill since. Another measure of time, external, a way to make something senseless and unintuitive concrete.

"Fine, fine, too long," the Iron Bull says. "Should've thought of you guys earlier."

"That isn't even close to the point, sir," Stitches says.

The Iron Bull shrugs.

"Lay off," he says. "Go start figuring out who has contacts in Nevarra or the Allied Systems who can fix us up with work. Or you can get cleaning. Your call."

 

 

Strangeness and strangeness and strangeness. It itches under his skin, Dorian's evasive smile, the void, the tightness in his chest that comes and goes, flares when Dorian touches him, flares when he sees his guys all hanging out together. A thing with a name, an abstract concept. Don't say the word. Not even privately.

Sera's got combat simulators set up on the third deck, so that's where the Iron Bull goes, too restless to plan and not on the cleaning rota for the day. Training's good, demands full focus. 

Dorian's already there, though. Using one of the guns, a light pistol in the Orlesian style, snub-nosed, the kind of shit people conceal at fancy parties just in case there's call to fight someone. Posturing, knowing that shit'll be picked up on. 

This one's modified for sensor arrays, no live ammo—not in space. Dorian's aim with it is good, but he's too slow; takes a moment to focus before each shot that's way too long for an actual firefight. Target down, target down, target down—but the Iron Bull could've killed him six ways by now.

"Oh, for—" Dorian says, starting as he turns, target flickering to life between them for the instant it takes for Dorian to dismiss the simulation. A quick flick of the hand. "Did you want something, or are you simply here for the rare pleasure of seeing my display of mediocrity?"

He's nettled. Real irritation at being caught out.

"You had lessons but you haven't practiced," the Iron Bull says. "You'll get it. Smart idea, remembering it now and not when someone's got you pinned."

"When someone has me pinned, I'll burn their face off," Dorian says, with interesting savagery. "I'm merely increasing my options."

"Bit of a risk, keeping those implants at all," the Iron Bull says.

"Bit of a risk, not waiting to see what would become of me in my father's house," Dorian says. "Bit of a risk being here at all, particularly in the company of some alleged Tal-Vashoth. I _do_ enjoy risks."

The Iron Bull laughs.

"Gonna keep going? I can come back."

"No, no," Dorian says. "By all means. Allow me to watch your form."

That one's tricky. Should be a bad idea, letting Dorian see how he shoots—you can strip back the bulk of the implants that boost performance, but the thing is, he's still got his basic build, his training: reflexes, thinking time.

He would also kind of like to show off, which doesn't make a damn bit of sense.

Sometimes, he just doesn't make sense to himself; can feel the chasm at his feet tugging at him, irrationality, disintegration.

Sometimes. Often. 

"Sure," he says. "You can watch. Bet you're into that, huh?"

Dorian makes an interesting little noise of frustration, but hauls himself up to sit on a pile of crates, lashed down against the bulkhead. 

The Iron Bull goes over the collection of modified weapons, tests the heft of them. Picks out a heavier pistol, and grins over at Dorian.

Starts the simulator.

Begun, there's no showing off; no space for it. Training and programming fall into place together, snap him into a rhythm, quick and focused. Breathe between shots. Steady. Reload. He settles his weight low, falls to the side to avoid a shot, rolls with the movement. 

On and on.

For him, the speed is unimpressive; yeah, he's gotten slower. A twinge in his ankle. He breathes heavily when he comes to rest. All the same, his attempt lands at the top of the list of recorded times the ship displays for him.

90 percent. Should be over 95. Not acceptable.

But it's harder, of course, without all the tools that used to be at his disposal. With only one eye. Not even a full set, where he once had six pairs, six bodies, a whole networked array of perceptions. One segment of a whole, which was a segment of something greater again.

Dorian is looking pretty startled, almost blank with it; collects himself quickly when the Iron Bull looks over at him, but not nearly quickly enough.

"Ex-military," he says. "I haven't seen that since—"

"Since?"

"I lived in Qarinus as a child, you know."

There it is.

Qarinus is a city on a wealthy planet in one of the border systems of the Imperium; another capital of a sort, if you ask Tevinter, provincial but powerful. It lies in the northern hemisphere of the planet whose equatorial warzone is Seheron.

It is fifteen years fallen, remodelled, rebuilt in another image.

Six connected segments that made up Hissrad unit, and Hissrad is a subordinated segment of the Ariqun herself, and Seheron is its business.

Hissrad, this piece of Hissrad that is the repurposed solitary unit named the Iron Bull, walks the empty streets of Qarinus in the morning light as they unfurl the banners of the Qun from the eaves of the temple of Toth. Red on white and white on red in turn. He is on Seheron, also; in Alam. He is in the temple, watching the hangings being torn down, the jeweled statue of the dragon being wrenched from its golden perch. He sleeps. Three to walk and three to rest, in shifts, except when there's an emergency. In that place, emergency is never far away.

For him, for this one piece of him that remains, there is ruddy stone covered in flowering vines. High windows, dusty in the sun. The wreckage of the invasion is for the most part already cleared away when he arrives, but here and there rubble still tumbles across doorways, blocks streets. Broken glass here, scorched skeletons of vines there.

He isn't meant to hold these things.

"No," the Iron Bull says. "Not Antaam. You were right about that."

"What, then?"

The many. Ben-Hassrath. But Ben-Hassrath, specifically, are not people. Who would trust a person with the delicate business of keeping peace? Only Bas.

"Priesthood," he says.

It is true. Inaccurate, but true.

"Dragons preserve us, then," Dorian says. "Do all your craftsmen shoot like that as well?"

The Iron Bull shrugs.

There is an uneasy tension to the silence. Qarinus lies in ruins between them.

"No, I know," Dorian says. "The priesthood is, if I understand correctly—a varied sort of collection of roles. I don't imagine you spent a great deal of time on scripture."

"More than you might think," the Iron Bull says. "Nah, fine, not interpretation. Not my business."

Qunari recite scripture. Others only hear it. Gathered in the shade of the compound, the desert stretching around them, the Tamassrans sing together. All things by threes, under the wisdom of Koslun. Body, mind and soul. 

Do not fear the dark. The stars will return to guide you.

Hissrad unit in its cell hears the words and searches for meaning.

The Iron Bull hears them singing, too, outside his dark room; he has been broken and is as yet not remade, a thing with no name that doesn't know what it had been or will be. But the words are comfort all the same. Remind him of indistinct things, of details. Tama's white hair in elaborate braids, her strands of blue beads and knots signifying unit and history of service. Tokens from friends. Her crooked nose and worn hands.

He withdraws from these illicit images.

"It makes you distant, this topic," Dorian says thoughtfully.

"You like talking about your childhood?"

"Oh, yes," Dorian says. "At length, preferably."

 

"You like talking about your dad fucking you over?"

A strained laugh. "As usual, you make a more reasonable point than I could possibly have expected. I am humbled again. Will you let me take a turn with a gun again to humiliate myself once more so that I can get it over with? You do like threes, I believe."

"Go ahead," the Iron Bull says. "You want me to show you how to handle a weapon?"

Dorian laughs again, properly this time. "That was atrocious. I ought to make you sorry."

"Maybe you should," the Iron Bull says. "Later."

"Distraction tactics."

"Sure."

The Iron Bull steps out of Dorian's way, watches with interest as Dorian gestures his way quickly through the setup, the determined line of his mouth as he takes picks up his gun.

Dorian is a contradiction, a tangle of complexity. Thoughtful and blindly privileged, frivolous and determined. Emptiness is an illusion.

The Iron Bull seeks knowledge, and how much there is to be drawn from Dorian.

But, seeking to unravel Dorian, he feels keenly that there's no damn purpose to the thing. It's only habit, and interest, and the interest is only a function of his role. He wants to know because he's made to solve puzzles.

He spends a long time thinking, watching Dorian run scenario after scenario, wavering on the edge of improvement and exhaustion. Doesn't find answers, and goes to bother Krem, dissatisfied. 

It's only when he's found his boys and inserted himself into their game of cards that it occurs to him that if Dorian had been in Qarinus when it fell, he might have known exactly what that kind of shooting accuracy from a man with only one eye meant.

 

 

Later, of course, Dorian comes to find him. Closes the door behind him before he's even said hello. For the briefest moment, the Iron Bull considers the possibility that he's about to be confronted; but Dorian's looking too relaxed for that. Dressed too lightly. He'd have all his metaphorical armour in place if he was out to call a Ben-Hassrath on his game; probably some literal armour too. Dorian's reckless, not stupid. Repeat it.

"I believe," Dorian says, hand on the Iron Bull's shoulder, "I promised I would make you sorry for the quality of your innuendo. I could make you very sorry indeed. I'm not a very nice man, you know." There's a smile playing at the corner of his mouth, warmth in his eyes. He isn't pushing. Decent space between them, only the one point of contact. Play.

And yeah, the Iron Bull goes for it. Turned around in his own head as he is, it's way too tempting a thought: give it up, let it all be someone else's responsibility for a while. No voice directs him, although it should. There is only silence when he tries, reflexively, to turn to the Qun. To submit himself to his role.

Worst idea he's had in a good long while. But he wants it so damn much, now he's been offered it.

"Alright," he says, and knows it's only going to blur the lines more, and doesn't care. Doesn't bother to lie to himself, for once.

Rules, limits, safewords. The process of establishing terms of engagement is in itself soothing. A different thing from the stumbling progress of that first night, more clearly delineated, simplified, although it is heavier. Because it is heavier.

Dorian says, "Would you care to remove those hideous clothes of yours, or should I burn them off you?"

The tone is playful. Dorian promised it, and here it is: no violence, not now. It was fine the first time, good, fire on his skin, but it's not what is needed here.

He strips.

"You're going to lie on your back on the bed," Dorian says. "Will you do that for me?"

He will.

"Touch yourself," Dorian says. "Show me how you like to get yourself hard."

Dorian's own hands are on the fastenings of his shirt; his eyes on the Iron Bull. The Iron Bull, meeting his gaze, feels arousal shudder hot along his spine.

He swallows. 

Both hands between his legs. One loose around his half-soft cock, one pressing at his balls, squeezing them. His legs shift on the bed, his hips tilting.

Not all segments need this, but this one does. Hissrad unit as a whole is inclined to physical desire, but this body in particular. 

They find use for that. Find use for everything.

But then there's emotional comfort, two or three of his bodies pressed together in a bed, warmth and closeness. Sex, sometimes, with a Tamassran guiding one or more of Hissrad's segments through the motions, monitoring its bodies' reactions, monitoring its mental state.

"It doesn't take much, does it?" Dorian says, not unkindly. Sheds the last of his clothes, and takes a step towards the bed. "Do you prefer to come repeatedly, or to be denied?"

It's how conversational he sounds that really gets the Iron Bull, has him pressing his palms flat to the bed, the feeling of it hot beneath his ribs.

"Your call," he says. "Like you say, I'm easy."

"Hmm," Dorian says. He leans in over the Iron Bull, one knee on the bed making the mattress dip. His hand is heavy on the Iron Bull's chest, pressing down over his sternum. "I suppose you'll just have to wait and see, then."

A pause, clearly meant to allow space for objections. The Iron Bull really doesn't have any to offer.

So here it is:

Dorian, gentle but sure, in his element now. Leaning back against the head of the bed he gestures the Bull to lie on his front between Dorian's spread legs, horns framing Dorian's hips. A difficult angle, hard to move, hands flat on the bed again behind Dorian's ass.

"Suck me," Dorian says, but doesn't move to help. Refuses to fuck the Iron Bull's face, makes him strain for it instead, rocks his hips back when the Iron Bull tries to take him deeper into his mouth, laughs breathily at the Iron Bull's grunt of frustration.

Strokes his forehead, scratches very carefully at the bases of his horns.

"Leave your hands where they are," he says, at the first shift of the Iron Bull's shoulders against his thighs. "I'm not going to bind you. You'll have to have a little self-control."

The brush of his fingers against the Iron Bull's mouth, the press of his thumb against the Iron Bull's lower lip. The head of his dick is barely touching the Iron Bull's mouth, but his fingers press in, push down on the Iron Bull's tongue, almost satisfying.

They aren't there for long enough.

"Please," the Iron Bull says, and his voice sounds strange, hoarse and far away.

His pulse feels heavy between his legs, in his wrists. Dorian would stop him if he tried to rut against the bed. It's a comforting thought.

"Please what?" Dorian asks, and this is gentle too. 

He's so sharp outside of bed. With the Iron Bull in charge, he was sharp in it. But here—

It's dangerous. The Iron Bull knows it's dangerous. Emotion is necessary for semi-independent functioning. Units are typically emotionally attached to their Tamassrans, and to the Qunari units they serve alongside. Without emotion, how do you choose anything? Prioritise logically equal choices?

But it's not emotion like this, jagged, urgent.

It's dangerous. It's dangerous.

He doesn't care.

"Let me get you off," he says. "Suck you properly."

"Why?" Dorian asks. "Would that make you feel good?"

" _Yeah,_ " the Iron Bull says. Closes his eye. Grits his teeth against desire.

"Because you want the people you fuck to feel good," Dorian says. "It matters more than feeling good yourself, no?"

"Doesn't mean I don't get off on it," the Iron Bull says.

Dorian laughs. It's a good sound, a welcome one. He tilts his hips, pushing his dick more firmly against the Iron Bull's lips, and the Iron Bull opens to him, moans in relief when Dorian's hands on either side of his head push him down instead of guiding him away.

Still no roughness, barely any movement; just Dorian's dick, hard and smooth against his tongue. 

"What a picture you are," Dorian says. "Take a little time to explore. We haven't exactly got anywhere to be, have we."

Still that humour. But when the Iron Bull drags his tongue against the thick vein on the underside of Dorian's cock, he moans, hips jerking, quickly stilled.

Another day, maybe Dorian would fuck his mouth.

Today, the Iron Bull takes what he is given; lets Dorian measure it.

The tension in Dorian's thighs on either side of his head. The strong curl of his fingers against the Iron Bull's scalp. He is bitter on the Iron Bull's tongue. Gasps at every second touch, tongue to the slit of his cock, lips dragging at his foreskin.

It's too soon when Dorian pushes him away, still hard; leaves the Iron Bull panting and flushed, chest heaving.

The Iron Bull's cock aches between his legs; a spreading ache, discomfort low in his gut.

"How are your knees?" Dorian asks, and the Iron Bull is slow to process the words, struggling to reach them. He is his own arousal. It's difficult to make anything else matter.

"Bull?" Dorian prompts.

"Fine," the Iron Bull says. "Ankle's worse."

Dorian hums acknowledgement. "Hands and knees," he says, and coaxes the Iron Bull up far enough to allow him freedom of movement. Stands. He's watchful as the Iron Bull moves to obey, awareness of his gaze sharpening that ache of arousal. Unbearable and insufficient.

"Good," Dorian says. Strokes his knuckles against the dip of the Iron Bull's lumbar spine, draws them down to the cleft of the Iron Bull's ass. No further.

The Iron Bull grunts frustration. Doesn't move.

"Who would have known you could be so obedient," Dorian says. Sighs, a theatrical little thing. "If I only had some of my toys. I could reward you so creatively. I always was very depraved, you know. If you count enjoyable sex as depravity, which of course we do."

It's funny. The Iron Bull is distantly aware of the fact. He could laugh, say something filthy back. But laughter is far away now.

"Dorian," he says, and the name rasps, becomes half a growl; urgency, not anger.

"There," Dorian says, soothing. Hands on the Iron Bull's hips pulling him back a little, down a little, until Dorian's dick is pressing against his ass. "Hold yourself like that."

Dorian's body, bowed forward over his back. A hand flat on his stomach has him shuddering, the stutter of his breath turning into a moan as Dorian presses harder.

"You want to be touched so badly," Dorian says. The light scrape of nails through the hair below the Iron Bull's navel. "My hand on you. You'd come apart so quickly."

I need you, I need you, I need you.

"I don't think so," Dorian says. "You enjoy being used, yes? I'll use you well. I have you."

Dorian's hands, spreading the cheeks of his ass; pressing them together against his cock, shallow thrusts, slick, until Dorian spills across the Iron Bull's back. A filthy hand pressed to the Iron Bull's mouth. Clean me.

The Iron Bull kneels on the floor to suck Dorian hard again while Dorian touches reverent fingers to the Iron Bull's face; traces scars, traces the lines of bones.

Aches and aches, in his chest now too. All of him is sensitized, every touch shakes him.

On his side with his legs crossed, and Dorian pushing between his thighs; he cries out at the press of Dorian's dick, close to his balls but never quite reaching them, wanting more, wanting less, afraid that he might come.

"Do you need to stop?" Dorian murmurs against his shoulder.

No—no—

"Safeword," Dorian says.

The Iron Bull gives it.

On his back again. Dorian kneels between his splayed legs, smiles at the sight of his dick, the deep flush to the skin. His hand hovers above it, like he's considering. Touch me, don't touch me, I want—

"If I had a ring," Dorian says, thoughtful, "I'd fuck myself on your cock now. But you'd only come the moment we began like this, wouldn't you."

The Iron Bull nods jerkily.

"But you _want_ it," Dorian says, with wonder. "Would you like me inside you instead?"

Yes—

It's not really fucking, this part, when they get to it. It's just what was promised—Dorian inside him, almost still, the tiniest movements of his dick as he shifts his weight, the Iron Bull's hips hitched up into his lap. Pressure, a different kind from the deep ache that he's lived with since they began. A relief, nearly. Grounding, for sure. Been a while since he had someone in him, hasn't it? A few months? Hard to measure. No big deal. Been longer since he felt it like this. He knows that one. Measure it in years.

Dorian's hair clings to his forehead. Sweat on his chest.

His hands are on the Iron Bull's thighs, stroking up and down; thumbs so close to the Iron Bull's dick at the end of the upstroke, framing without touching. That has the Iron Bull gasping, twisting; has him feeling the drag of Dorian's dick inside him all over again. His toes curl. Right foot against the damp sheets, left against Dorian's back.

Fuck, fuck—

"Shh," Dorian says, fingers soothing on his side. "There, let it out. You did so well."

The Iron Bull's vision blurs damply.

"I'm going to let you come now," Dorian says. "Do you want my hand?"

"Fuck me," the Iron Bull says, and his voice is hardly his own, desperate. Uneven.

"Of course," Dorian says, and makes good, shifts his weight forward until he can thrust properly, quick and shallow. The Iron Bull's breath hitches with every one, ah, ah, ah—

His orgasm whites out the world around him entirely.

There, Hissrad, the Tamassran says, kind against his ear. Just let it happen.

He does.

On and on. Shaken, shaken, shaken.

 

 

Dorian is cleaning him up when he begins to feel like himself again—like the Iron Bull, singular, disconnected. It is a loss. Bereft, unable to feel the mind of a single other entity, unable to see himself where he lies.

But Dorian grasps his hand, a soft touch as he shifts the Iron Bull this way and that, tending to him; says nothing when the Iron Bull finds that it's difficult, after all, to let go. When the Iron Bull's fingers tighten, without the Iron Bull's permission, grasping.

Emotion is necessary. Decisions require emotion; so, of course, does loyalty, which is only another kind of decision. Units love Tamassrans—not the Tamassrans who see to sex, specifically, but the Tamassrans assigned to their training and their maintenance in a more general way. But emotion uncontrolled is a liability; it is the possibility of madness, of the sort of savagery Tevinter writes about in melodramas, that the Qun writes about in cautionary pamphlets. His emotional state forever monitored, in Hissrad unit's dividuality and the Iron Bull's singular existence, measured to avoid inconvenience. Unreasonable hatred, love that runs too deep or takes on the wrong character.

And here he is, unattended. Inconvenienced.

If Dorian didn't climb back onto the bed then and pull the Iron Bull close to him, what might have become of him? He feels the threat of it, horrifying, a sort of void that pulls to him, an event horizon. No way of knowing what's beyond it until it's too late. Never any way of knowing.

But Dorian is there. Does climb back into the bed. Does hold him.

Leans over him, also, breath hot against the Iron Bull's face.

Kisses him.

Kisses him just as the Iron Bull has wanted, as he has avoided acknowledging. 

Slow and deep.

"Fuck," the Iron Bull says, when their lips part. Still hazy, still fragile. 

Dorian's laughter is uncertain.

"Yes," he says. 

And nothing more.


	6. Cultural Heritage

_So he fled, of course. Fled with a hastily packed bag, a few pieces of clothing, what money he could put his hands on, what things he could use to make a little more. Fled to one of the two people who might have sympathy._

_Felix, Dorian said, silent. Felix, it's me, I'm outside. Let me in._

_Dorian? Didn't think he'd let you out any time this year._

_You knew?_

_The servants' door at the back of the Alexius residence opened hurriedly, and Felix's pale familiar face revealed itself._

_No, Felix said aloud, smile wry. You were on a retreat for your health. Obviously there was nothing weird about_ that.

_Is your father at home?_

_No, Felix said, and there was something evasive there, some slight hunching of his shoulders as he led Dorian further into the complex. No, he's on a nice little retreat for my health._

_Dragons, Dorian said. Still?_

_Again, Felix said._

_Silence, lasting all the way to the section that belonged to Felix alone. Silence as Felix pressed his palm to the lock, as the door clicked open. Closed._

_Felix slumped._

_Dorian. I know you'll figure it out sooner or later, with those games of yours, but you need to know now. He's joined that damn cult. Iunius and his friends._

_Iunius and his two closest compatriots were far from the leaders of the Venatori, but they were the people he and Mae had been able to get at. People one or the other of them might loosely claim as acquaintances by merit of shared schooling or family ties. And of course Felix would know, of course Felix was no fool._

_My dear friends are meddling in your life as well as in politics, then?_

_In my death, possibly, Felix said, and he looked properly worn then. My father doesn't believe in synthetic transfer any more than yours does, but—Dorian, what is it?_

_I, Dorian said, and, Felix—_

_And then he began, horrifyingly, to cry. The knowledge of it, the betrayal, was going to risk this reaction for a long time to come, he suspected. Something too raw for him to take._

_A story, in incoherent fragments: I don't remember—I can't—perhaps he didn't even do anything, but—_

_I don't know what I am._

_The circles under Felix's eyes were no darker than they had been a moment before, but Dorian became more acutely aware of them. Their significance, the significance of the pallor of Felix's skin—inescapable._

_Felix, the child born for love, dying. Dorian, the child born for greatness, lost._

_Tell me what he's doing, Dorian said, when he could breathe. I won't let him destroy you._

_I don't know, exactly, Felix said. But I know he's been doing a lot of research about implants. And your friends, they love to talk about how good it was in the old times. Battles with Nevarra, you know?_

_Bodies that walked after death._

_And you think—_

_Felix shrugged._

_I think I'd rather die than be that sort of tool._

_They sat together on the floor of Felix's hallway, leaning into one another, between life and death._

_Is there nobody left for me to admire but you? Dorian asked, and Felix's laugh was bitter, as nothing about Felix ever should have been._

 

 

There's an unease to the morning, a subtle wrongness to every step of his usual routines. Breakfast and water, scrubbing his face, stretching to ease the aches of the afternoon before—and there's the crux, of course. He's off balance, alarmed at himself. You can help him because you like him, Krem said, and he's held that; but this is something else.

It makes him restless, like he could crawl out of his skin. Sends him looking for something to do that isn't cleaning crap or pretending to shoot crap—not that easy to come by, short of getting close to all Dagna's weird experiments, the shit he doesn't even want to think about.

Ship, unprompted, presents him with an option; sets a list of Dagna's news feeds up in his field of vision, extensive, of all calibres.

Right. An AI. An AI that apparently likes him enough to try and lend a hand, even if it's been utterly silent so far otherwise.

But of course, Ship's right. There are unfinished conversations, implications, things he's been meaning to follow up all week. Puzzle pieces to examine.

"Thanks," he says, to the air.

And there, after only a bit of work, Dorian is, as he has presented himself: socially high profile, politically lacking, the subject of an honestly impressive number of gossip pieces. Friends with Maevaris Tilani, which is the bit that strikes an odd note; not because she's any less of a walking scandal than he is, but because the Iron Bull's met her. She's in some ways of a type with Dorian, playing at frivolity and sharp enough to cut. But she's also definitely, inescapably politically savvy. Puts out bills in the Magisterium to provoke argument, and doesn't win outright battles but shifts the lines a little bit at a time. Mae would be the contact who relieved them of their flyers, he'd bet—the person Dorian's used to working alongside.

So: Dorian, dismissing the idea of his significance, downplaying, misdirecting. Dorian whose degree of separation from the Lucerni is laughable, who is the only son of a major house, but whose name still never shows up in the context of politics.

He's something alright. Something that the Iron Bull is increasingly impressed by, for all his infuriating points. 

The Iron Bull gave him too much the day before. And he maybe doesn't trust the Iron Bull, but he was careful with it all the same.

A vivid, hot sense-memory: Dorian's thighs against his ass, the pressure of his dick—hands on his sides— 

He puts it away hurriedly. 

The simulator after all. He has to improve his times.

 

 

A mess of cards and dice, bottles of cheap alcohol. It's late by the ship's internal schedule, lights dimmed, but time's more of a suggestion in space. Nowhere to be and nobody to interact with. They're not military. Only the Iron Bull's training like they were, although Dorian's racking up a surprising number of hours for some Tevinter noble.

Party's underway when the Iron Bull shows, skin damp from the showers.

"Alright," Sera's saying to Rocky, "but you have to sing the song."

"No," Dorian says emphatically from his spot in the corner. "He does _not_. You haven't heard his singing voice."

"Now you really have to," Sera says. Cackles. 

Rocky shrugs.

"We can all sing it," Dalish says brightly, and that's all it takes; the Iron Bull could've called that one.

No man can beat the chargers!

Classic stuff. Rocky's fault from the beginning, mostly.

"I can beat you," Sera says to Stitches, who happens to be closest. "Charging in waving your little _horns_ around—see if you can keep it up under fire, right?"

"Oh, I think I can keep it up if it's for you," Dalish says from a couple of seats over. Bats her eyelids, looks sidelong at Skinner. Not illegally augmented, not a flirt, not playing any kind of sex game with her girlfriend in the middle of gambling night.

"Uh, _no_ ," Sera says, though she's kind of giggly about it. Wouldn't surprise the Iron Bull if that one went somewhere, though fuck if he knows where, exactly. "Widdle's got a horn she made just for me. Don't need yours."

"I'm not listening to any of this," Dorian says, with obvious delight; looks up to see the Iron Bull in the doorway, first to notice. A fleeting smile, flickering.

The Iron Bull brings two fingers to temple in a lazy gesture of greeting.

"Please," Dorian says, "tell me you haven't come to sing as well."

"I might have," the Iron Bull says.

Almost normal, if Dorian was one of his guys. If heat didn't spread in his chest when Dorian smiled.

Alright. That's how it is. He knew that when he let Dorian take him apart. It's not a job and it's not rational, and the last bits of structure the Qun gave him to maintain his existence with are all messed up.

"Joining in, Chief?" Krem asks, and the Iron Bull shrugs, sits, lets the conversation flow around him.

Dorian is mostly doing the same. The dart of his gaze in the Iron Bull's direction is irregular, but repeated, without subterfuge.

He follows the Iron Bull when it's time to turn in for the night, stands poised in the cabin doorway with fingers to his lips. 

"Are you done with games for the night?"

"Not if it's you asking," the Iron Bull says. "Always time for a bit of suspicion, right?"

"For other things as well, one hopes," Dorian says.

Maybe, maybe. One or two other things. Three, at a stretch.

 

 

Morning, scrubbing down the shower. A one person job, the space too enclosed for anything else. 

"Ship," the Iron Bull says.

Silence.

He tries a few times a day, and there's that weird prickling feeling on the back of the neck like he's being monitored from somewhere just out the corner of his vision, those fucking blind spots he shouldn't have—which is stupid, of course he's being monitored, everyone always is on a ship with an AI. But there's never a direct response, all the same.

"Don't think you hate me," the Iron Bull says. "You've been helping me out."

Silence.

"Alright," he says, and gets back to scrubbing, groaning at the effort of hauling himself up off the floor to reach higher.

 

 

Everything becomes routine, one week and then another. No point looking out of the windows; nothing to see. Dagna is busy, shut away for the most part in a room full of unfamiliar technology; Sera comes and goes, talks to Rocky with slightly worrying interest. And there's Dorian, so sunk into silence in the common area that he starts when the Iron Bull nudges his shoulder; Dorian, clutching his side as he bows over, forehead to table, gasping laughter at Sera's filthiest jokes. Dorian silent in his bed, hitching gasps of suppressed pleasure as the Iron Bull fingers him, knuckles of his left hand white where he clutches his right wrist. Dorian kneeling over the Iron Bull, smirking down at him, palm to the Iron Bull's stomach. 

It is, in a way, a kind of status quo. In that way, it could become comfortable.

But it's not going to last. And if the ship's the same size as a small Qunari surveillance vessel, if they're about as many people, there's no pretending it's the same. Too loud, too chaotic. They're not on military rations, not on military time.

But he acts as though he is, rises and cleans and trains.

Something retrieved from the void.

 

 

Punctuation.

"So you're unusual," Dagna says conversationally. "Let me take a better look? I never meet Tal-Vashoth."

"Uh, no," the Iron Bull says. 

"Please?" She asks. "I won't break anything. I could probably even make some things work better. Ship seems to like you, and it thinks you need some of your bits fixed."

"Ship hasn't talked to me about that," the Iron Bull says. Maybe a bit sulkily. Ship has not, in fact, talked to him at all, apart from showing him data in ways that were definitely suggestions. It's been so silent that he'd begun to wonder if Dagna's AI was even capable of communicating with crew and passengers in any more direct way. If it was some completely different model. After a moment, because Sera wasn't in the workroom to make the contribution herself, he added, "My bits are where they're meant to be, thanks."

‹‹ I apologise, ›› Ship says silently. ‹‹ I have been trying to understand. ››

‹‹ And now you figured I need an intervention? ›› The Iron Bull asks, in kind.

‹‹ Yes. ››

This is an ongoing theme of his life; why should he be surprised?

Dagna is silent, watching him without prompting.

‹‹ Sounding a lot like Krem, ›› he says. ‹‹ For an AI. ››

‹‹ Krem agrees with my assessment, ›› Ship says. ‹‹ In the abstract, that is. ››

‹‹ And what's that? ››

Ship says:

‹‹ You don't have to be born to be a person. ››

The Iron Bull goes cold.

"You're teaching your AI some shit," he says aloud. "Better hope it doesn't go telling every station it meets what it thinks of them."

"It probably does," Dagna says cheerfully. "If they listen or not isn't _my_ problem. I don't tell it what to do. We're more like co-workers. Friends, maybe. Oh, sorry, that makes you nervous."

Heart-rate monitoring, probably.

"Ship's had plenty of time to get a look at me," the Iron Bull says. "Why don't you just ask it, if you two get on so well."

"Ship doesn't see you with eyes," Dagna says. "It can only know what its sensors tell it. It's not really the same as having a body, not like those Qunari ships people always write horror stories about. It can't see things like physical signs of disabled implants—which you're really good at hiding, by the way. It has a theory about you, and it wants me to test it. That's all."

The Iron Bull could very easily have become a body for a ship. It wasn't an uncommon use for the splintered remains of units; didn't require that they have any intact sense of identity left. Worked better if they didn't, really. It might have been simpler. He just wouldn't be here any more, not in his own right.

The thought unsettles him, though. Has always unsettled him, even when he accepted it as a possible necessity; a possible demand of the Qun. Units must have emotions to be able to function in the field. Therefore, units are liable to resist their own destruction.

It is unfortunate.

It doesn't make them people.

Us. It doesn't make us people.

Something scrapes along the underside of his consciousness, a pebble in a boot. Some loose piece of—what?

"Think about it, if you like," Dagna says. "Offer's open. No use just letting everything go to waste because there's no Qun to keep it working properly."

"A Qunari would say it's already gone to waste," the Iron Bull says. In fact, losing connection to the Qun is the only way for a thing to go to waste, if you're Qunari.

Dagna smiles brightly. "Well, it's a good thing you're _not_ Qunari then."

 

 

And it's Dorian in the Iron Bull's bed, again, again, again. Hands tied together, stretched out above his head and held there only by Dorian's whim. Dorian's face turned away against his arm as he comes, his cry a shattered thing, voice raw from use.

Dorian alone in the common room, feet tucked under him, watching melodramas or romances with the same look of distaste on his aristocratic face.

Dorian after sex, too quiet, making the Iron Bull want to fuss. Dorian after sex, touching the Iron Bull with reverence, his face, his neck—like he cares.

Dorian, keeping secrets.

Not long left.

 

 

Nessum is a planet that doesn't actually meet the Tevinter standard of civilisation in most respects, for all that it technically falls under its jurisdiction.

"Provincial," Dorian says, amused, "isn't nearly a strong enough word."

In a few of the cities they probably speak Tevene, although trying to use it is generally a good way to flag yourself as potentially hostile in these kinds of places. As far as the Iron Bull can figure, there are also several hundred minor local languages with associated dialects to navigate.

"Here," Dagna says, pointing out an island chain close to the southern pole, flicking the display over to a local map with a fingertip. "We'll take a shuttle down from the station and come back the same way, just to show how nice we are and how above-board this is. Easy enough to rent a sledge from someone around the port."

"And I thought we'd get to be dashing criminals," Dorian says. "I have a little cape if you need to borrow one. I understand it's considered good form. I myself am naturally villainous by virtue of my breeding."

"Ooh," Sera says. "I could wear a cape. Widdle, just imagine."

"Oh, really," Dagna says. "We have papers. I have a friend who has a friend who helped someone out at the University of Nevarra once. It's very legal. _So_ legal."

That delights Dorian too; gets him to laugh, properly, with his eyes. "And you need unconventional security because—?"

"Oh," Dagna says, "it's always sensible. If you're working with valuable things, people tend to get interested. It's remote, so you can't rely on the kind of law and order that might be around in cities."

"That's not all," the Iron Bull says.

"Of course it isn't," Dagna agrees. "Some Tevinter supremacists also threatened me a little bit for information, which they really shouldn't have done—still, I wouldn't have found the site if they hadn't. And it's so rare to find Nevarran military technology from before the peace treaty intact."

"Tevinter supremacists," Dorian says, and shit, he's at attention now. "What kind are we talking about here? The ones who like to dress up as ancient magisters and embarrass themselves at parties? The ones with guns?"

"The second kind," Dagna says. "Obviously. Venatori, I'm pretty sure. They think they're being clever, but anyone who's paying attention would notice the little cuff pin."

"That does sound like Venatori," Dorian agrees, and he says the words easily enough, but oh, the Iron Bull wonders. If he could just see the kinds of readings Ship and Dagna must be getting from Dorian right now.

But none of that. Only the curious play of Dorian's expression, the twitch of his fingers—nerves or messages?

"There you go," Sera says. "Chance to use that training, right?"

"Something like that," Dorian says.

 

 

Time alone, the Iron Bull thinks. Time to get his head on straight, get this whole thing with Dorian in order, work through the idea of an open future. Grey cabin walls and the hum of the ship and solitude.

So of course, there's heavy traffic through his cabin. 

It's Krem first, knocking on the door softly and waiting, looking like he's got a headache and a half.

"Hey," he says, when the Iron Bull waves him in, "need a word before we dock. Better now than in the morning. It's about Pavus."

"Alright," the Iron Bull says, keeping it neutral.

"Maker, I hate that expressionless Ben-Hassrath crap you pull sometimes," Krem says. "Look, here's the thing. You didn't tell him about your past, did you?"

"Bits," the Iron Bull says.

"You didn't tell him you don't think you're a person."

"I'm not—" the Iron Bull says, breaks off with a sigh, rubs at his chin. "No."

Krem gives him a curious look, shakes his head. Dismissal of a thought, nothing directed specifically outward.

"Well," he says, "why the fuck you didn't do that when you're clearly keeping him around for a while is your business. But I'm pretty sure he knows."

"What makes you think that?"

"Skinner said something. You know, the kind of stuff Skinner always says. Nothing that most people wouldn't pass of as Skinner being a shit, I guess. Only he got this look on his face like something had just fallen into place. Didn't seem as though he liked it, either."

"Ah, crap," the Iron Bull says. Bows his head, bent by the weight not of being caught out, but of Dorian's opinion of him. It's all wrong, every bit of it. He grits his teeth, breaths in carefully. Exhales forcefully, a grunt. "Think I'm finally losing it."

"What, 'cause you're letting him get to you? Happens to everyone one way or another, Boss."

"It shouldn't be happening to _me_ ," the Iron Bull says, and hears way too clearly how plaintive he sounds.

Krem's hand is warm and heavy on his shoulder. The Iron Bull reaches up and covers it with his own.

"You've always had feelings, you great lug," Krem says, gentle.

"Feelings are necessary," the Iron Bull says, repeating a fragment of the ongoing litany in his head, all Tama's words. "Not like this."

 

 

Skinner herself, not particularly contrite.

"He isn't a job," she says. "He's just some shem you like."

"What's your point, Skinner?" the Iron Bull asks, too worn out to be mild.

"I thought you'd have told him by now. I thought you were less of an idiot than the shems."

"Never came up," the Iron Bull says.

Skinner snorts.

"So it's my fault now," the Iron Bull says. "Nice, Skinner. Real nice."

"Yes," Skinner says. "It is." She stops to consider. "I can still stab him if you like."

"You don't want to stab him."

"Oh," Skinner says, "but I _do_."

It takes practice with Skinner to see when there's a glint of humour and when there's a glint of murderous intent, but the Iron Bull has practice.

He lets his shoulders slump.

"Go get drunk," he says. "Don't stab anyone."

 

 

And, of course, of course, there's Dorian, walking straight in like he's invited. He is, of course, technically—door's open, and that's the agreement they made. Should've closed it, maybe. His head's still heavy, the remnants of his emotional outburst pressing down on him.

"Here," Dorian says, setting a bottle very deliberately down on the Iron Bull's little desk. He's not looking at the Iron Bull, but he's trying to be casual, keeping his shoulders relaxed, his tone light. "I'd prefer to smoke, frankly, but this is what I have. Drink with me. If you've a mind."

Antivan script on the bottle. Forms learnt for solitary assignment, and this piece of recall is reflex, not unwelcome. It's the stuff they make from lemons on Salle, big business in the zone where they grow. Sweet stuff, and strong.

"Where did you get this?"

"I won it from Sera," Dorian says. "I suspect she was playing to lose. I quote: A drink for tits, but not the fun kind. And as we do all seem to be tits here, as Sera would have it—"

There we go.

"Krem came to see me earlier," the Iron Bull says. "Seemed to think you were gonna be pissed at me."

"I see," Dorian says. "How exciting. Do I have reason to be?"

"Come on," the Iron Bull says. "I'm tired. How about we just get this over with."

"I, for one, genuinely will need a drink for this conversation," Dorian says. "You of course may do as you wish. Cups?"

The Iron Bull bends to dig through the cabinet, and comes up with two serviceable water glasses, which Dorian fills with at least two measures of liquor each.

Dorian contemplates his, and takes a quick swallow, sets the glass down with a definite thud on the desk.

"So," he says, "if I have understood Skinner's eloquent commentary and Cremisius' rather exasperated response to it, you are, in fact, a—" He hesitates, clearly trying to pick a delicate word. Tevinter's got all kinds of choice names for the Ben-Hassrath, ranging from the mildly derogatory to impressively scaremongering. "You're not Qunari. And you never were."

The Iron Bull shrugs. "Qunari property."

"To be clear," Dorian says, "I'm not angry that you didn't tell me, whatever Cremisius may have surmised. I'm quite aware that those weren't the terms of our—" he waves a hand, indicating everything that lies between them. "I'm only—"

He makes an exasperated noise. Drinks.

"How do you know what you are?" he asks.

"How do you know you're alive?" It comes out maybe a bit combative, and yeah, it's needling, it's nothing rational. He isn't even fishing for information.

But he gets it.

"I _don't_ ," Dorian says. Snaps, vicious and low. "Stop playing. You seem very certain, but I would never have guessed. How do you know?"

"What do you mean, you don't know?"

"I mean I don't know!" Dorian's sitting too straight. The muscles of his jaw clench, and he seems to struggle to relax them. "I mean that my father certainly planned to, to replace me. I want to say that I found out and left. But I can't remember—"

"Doesn't have to mean he did it," the Iron Bull says carefully. "Trauma's weird like that. Maybe finding out fucked you up enough that your brain decided you don't need that shit right now."

"That sounds like something you've been told," Dorian says, with his typical unerring and slightly unnerving accuracy. An impatient gesture. "You're reading a script at me. And besides, I'm well aware. This is why I'm _asking you._ Nothing I've done"—a flicker here, Dorian's attention shifting out towards the Iron Bull, away—"has felt any different. But if I am nothing but an approximate collection of Dorian Pavus' memories, I could just as well be mistaken in that assessment in itself."

Dorian, clinging to the Iron Bull in a shitty hotel room. Smoking cigarette after cigarette, drinking hard. Looking, in sensation, for dissonance or familiarity. Proof.

The Iron Bull's chest tightens at the thought. Something wrong, something not to do with Dorian but to do with himself.

It's also slowly occurring to him that this wrongness, echoed back and forth between them, is probably the key to at least one other mystery he's been puzzling at.

"Damn," he says, assessing Dorian. " _That's_ why Stitches likes you."

"That's not an answer," Dorian says. Presses fingers to the bridge of his nose like warding off a headache. "But you're probably right. I may have—perhaps—tried to convince him to test me until he could work out whether I was human or not. Something he was very happy to tell me was impossible and also irrelevant."

"Yeah," the Iron Bull says. "Sounds like Stitches. Tries to convince me I'm not what I am all the time." He mimics Stitches' voice. "Doesn't matter if you're made or born, sir, I'm afraid you're still a person. Insubordinate little shit. Krem too."

"You seem so very," Dorian hesitates again, presses his lips together, frowns. "So very like a person. I don't know if I can see you as anything else."

"I'm a unit meant to gather intelligence. Be social. Pass. What the shit am I meant to do? They made me like this. That's all."

"I don't understand anything," Dorian says, and turns his face away, closes his eyes. Swallows hard, fighting back emotion the way he only ever does when they're on this topic. "When I was very young, I always used to think—"

"What?"

"Nothing much. There was an accident once, and I quite nearly died. I had nightmares about it for years, thought that maybe I had. Died, I mean. And now—"

He laughs. Drinks.

There is nothing the Iron Bull can say. Nothing that will make sense of the mess in Dorian's head.

Nothing that will make sense of the mess that is his own disintegrating protocols.

"Hey," he says. "Come here."

Dorian's mouth goes lax against his the moment they kiss. Dorian's body sinks, heavy and boneless.

What does it mean?

 

 

The next morning brings a jolting surge out into a field of stars; brings the brilliant gleam of the sun on the huge panels of the station, still distant. Preliminary approval of their passage bounced back to them quickly from the gate station, and out into reality. The slow crawl in, the special kind of tedium that the end of a journey brings, a perpetual almost-there. And finally, the heavy thunk of the docking clamps engaging. 

No Tevinter military craft in the system, and no ships registered to Magisters or their families, although the latter doesn't really mean crap.

Customs means a wait to be seen, though not a very long one; Nessum's near the border but it's not a hub of border transit, slightly out of the way, the planet not particularly attractive for much of anything.

In the line Dorian holds his shoulders square and his chin up, and his hand strays to the place where his birthright should sit more than once.

Only Dagna's looking really bright; perky, even, presenting her credentials and paperwork like there's no chance she'd ever be refused—although a Dwarf who works with the kinds of things she does has probably met a mountain of refusal in her time. Because she's met a mountain of refusal, probably. Trains a person to fake it.

There's still a debate, only the cadence of it decipherable. A few glances and gestures in their direction.

"Look docile," Dagna says when she comes back over to them. "Cute little baby nugs who never hurt anyone in their lives. We're cleared, but I'd be careful. Nothing they can't take back. And they don't like the look of you," a quick glance towards the Iron Bull, "or your lieutenant and, um—"

"—tag-along," Dorian says, at the same moment as Dagna says,

"Boyfriend."

A term mostly used in Starkhaven and a few of the other Allied Systems, implying a passing match of affection with no prospect of political or economic benefit. Not too bad a fit, if you defined affection broadly enough. Hasn't everyone been telling him for the last month that it isn't for any kind of benefit?

"That's rather Systems of you," Dorian says, drawing the same conclusion but sounding much more dubious about it. "We don't do things like that."

"Alright," Dagna says. "Doesn't matter, so long as you're nice. Not for long, don't worry, we'll be out again soon."

"Hah," Skinner says.

And she's got the right of it. The public shuttle to the planet's main transit hub leaves once daily, and has just left when they get clearance to head to departures, because of course it has; no private vehicles offering charter are scheduled.

Which means they've got plenty of time to worry about why, in Tevinter space, Dorian would be considered more suspect than any of the elves and dwarves present. Krem's an obvious one; low class, which is almost worse than being foreign. At least fucking with foreigners risks repercussions, especially out here. And Dorian—is it just that he's an obvious aristocrat trying to look like a member of a mercenary band, or has news of some kind travelled ahead of them?

Dorian is worrying at the bare spot where his birthright should sit again, and below it, where pins of affiliation should be lined up.

"You think you've been made?" the Iron Bull asks, because Dorian'd know better than him what reaction that might get from security.

"No," Dorian says. "No, I don't think so."

"But you think _something's_ up."

"Yes. Although, to be entirely fair, I usually think that, and I'm usually right. House politics, you know. An afternoon tea without an assassination attempt is rather a flat thing."

"Aw, you're feeling dramatic," the Iron Bull says. "That mean it's not really too bad, or that you think you're fucked?"

"As though you don't know," Dorian says. "Come now, Ben-Hassrath, tell me what I'm thinking. That _is_ part of your function, yes?"

"Not really," the Iron Bull says. "Look—"

"No, I know," Dorian says. "Best behaviour."

They've fallen behind the others by a few paces, so they're the last to step out of the narrow passage away from the docks and out onto the main concourse. It makes a clean line through the maze of the station, the ceiling high, four floors away. A busy place at this time of day. Easy to see why the mixed nature of their group didn't attract the main brunt of the official suspicion. Fashions from a baffling collection of Tevinter provinces, high caste dwarves heavily veiled and robed to maintain the polite pretense that they'd never allowed the light of any sun but their own to fall on them. Dalish tattoos in at least three distinct styles in evidence.

By the temple of the Twelve Dragons, all of them perched in a glittering line along its façade, an Andrastian chantry is all deep red and warm orange. Further along is the Dwarven embassy, doubling as a residence for scribes, like a makeshift shaperate where no shaperate is officially meant to exist. It's like any other station far from the centre of its culture, improvised, varied.

"Look at that wretched temple," Dorian says, delighted. "Those statues! Vulgar."

"Not feeling pious?" the Iron Bull asks.

"I—" hesitation, Dorian's humour subsiding. "Never particularly, although I was accustomed to make offerings."

"You haven't been."

"Ah!" Dorian says. "Yes. Well. There are certain rules, you know. Or perhaps you don't. You said that Cremisius was Andrastian."

"No, wait, hang on," the Iron Bull says. "Give me a moment. Uh—pollution, right?"

"Pollution," Dorian agrees. Seems like he wants to say something else, but glances quickly around at the crowded concourse and thinks better of it. "I also didn't have any icons on hand, but mostly pollution."

Pollution means plenty of things in Tevinter; could just be that there hasn't been a chance to cleanse some transgression. Fucking a Ben-Hassrath is more than enough in itself. In this case, though—the Iron Bull is pretty sure synthetic bodies are inherently unclean to the cult of the Dragons. No prayer for the artificial or the indentured.

Uneasy silence between them as they follow after Dagna and the rest in search of a hostel.

 

 

Because they were already behind, because the conversation had slowed them down, they're the only ones involved in what comes next. Maybe chance, maybe a touch of design—whatever the case, it is how it is.

They're making their way past the market intersection at the time, and the Iron Bull is on alert, sure. But no spotting what you don't know to look for. So when someone calls Dorian's name, it's the Iron Bull who's startled.

Dorian himself, turning, wears an expression of pure aristocratic boredom.

"Eleon," he says, and isn't it fascinating to see how he looks when he really fucking hates someone instead of thinking he should. "How lovely to see you. I never imagined I would find you so far from a decent tailor."

Eleon is as dark haired as Dorian but considerably paler, and with a kind of alarmingly symmetrical face, handsome but unsettling—modification, probably. He stands with his light coat pulled to himself like he's worried someone common might touch it. It is, in fact, a pretty damn fancy coat.

"A tour," Eleon says. "Father always said it was quite essential to see the provinces, although I can't say I agree so far. Besides, I never thought I'd find _you_ this far from a bathhouse."

"Goodness," Dorian says. "Are you attempting wit? My dear friend, it pains me as much as it pains you, and yet here I am."

Eleon's eyes flick downward; a customary sort of motion between Tevinter strangers, assessing relative positions. But here—

Dorian's coat is unadorned.

"And you've found such exotic company, too," Eleon says, smiling. "Really, you must come to tea and tell me about it. Does the thing speak, or does it merely do tricks for you?"

And yeah, that gets to Dorian like the bathhouse comment hadn't. No fury to his expression, but his body shifts, grows tense.

Fucking Tevinter.

"Boss," the Iron Bull says, and is pleased to see Eleon startle slightly, "the meeting."

"Yes, of course," Dorian says, without missing a beat. Good on him. "I do apologise, but I'm required elsewhere. We can't all be creatures of leisure, you know."

Eleon laughs, like it's a private joke between friends.

"Ah, yes. Don't let me keep you from your _very_ important business. But you must join me later. Or tomorrow, perhaps?"

"No," Dorian says. "I'm visiting the planet to carry out research in Janer. I leave shortly."

"But you'll be back through," Eleon says. "You won't care to stay on Nessum long. Even Janer is wretchedly cold, you know. They call fifteen degrees celsius hot weather. You must see me when you return. It would honour me."

"And I would be honoured to accept," Dorian says, with stiff formality. Custom, restriction. Rude of him even to put off taking tea with a peer; ruder to refuse altogether. And Dorian's usually pretty rude, but there's something here—something the Iron Bull doesn't have enough information to untangle. 

 

 

"Of course he'd be here," Dorian mutters, shrugging out of his coat and throwing it onto the bed that's still clear of other people's belongings. " _Coincidence._ "

No such thing in Tevinter, although they're speaking Trade for the benefit of assembled company.

"Thought you two had gotten distracted," Dagna says cheerfully. "Who's this you're talking about?"

"An old friend," Dorian says, and manages to inject the word _friend_ with a sincerely impressive amount of venom. "We're going to have tea when I return from Nessum. Delightful."

No real privacy here; no chance to get Dorian to own up to what's going on, give him a realistic risk assessment without bodies or pointed silence giving them away. It's not good, he can tell that much.

‹‹ Dorian, ›› he tries anyway, silent.

‹‹ No, ›› Dorian replies, the twitch of his fingers minute. Skilled at avoiding notice. ‹‹ Not now, thank you. ››

That's what the Iron Bull figured.

‹‹ Got to talk about it sooner or later, ›› he says, ‹‹ if this guy is going to keep happening to you. ››

‹‹ Yes, ›› Dorian agrees. ‹‹ But not now. ››


	7. Games of Chance, Tevinter Rules

_In the garden, Gereon Alexius' clothes gleamed red and gold in the sun, old-fashioned jacket in mock military style, high in the neck._

_Not now, Father, Felix said. We have a guest._

_Dorian, Alexius said, surprise for a moment. I thought—but no, no, this is as well. Perhaps a coincidence._

_Or an omen, depending on the context. Difficult to place, here. How thoroughly ambiguous._

_A surprise. They had parted on poor terms, to put it mildly. Yes, Dorian had regretted it on occasion; how difficult it had been, to begin with, before Mae. How he had missed Felix, how he had missed the security of the household, of patronage._

_But they had fought, and that was as it was._

_Felix was still, head turned away as though he was terribly interested in the orchids to his left._

_How so? Dorian asked._

_Why—I was thinking of proposing an arrangement to you. I had not wanted to approach your father as a proxy—I know how strained things are between you. But as you're here—_

_Father, Felix said, without looking up, I don't think Dorian wants to join the Venatori._

_I most certainly do not, Dorian agreed. Please, tell me that the rumours I've heard were incorrect. Please tell me that you're not going to drag Felix into that pit of vipers._

_Gratitude from Felix, deliberately displayed to him in the privacy of his head._

_Why, Alexius said, exasperated, does everyone believe that they know the nature of the Venatori's enterprise? That your father is unreasonable on the topic is no surprise to me—he has become set in his ways._

_Was this not exactly the sort of thing we wanted to stop? Cultists abusing their power, unethical uses of technology?_

_Yes, Felix agreed. Dorian, I think you need to go._

_He does not, Alexius said._

_But he did, he did, couldn't stomach any of it—the Venatori, the precariousness of Felix's position, Alexius' collapse into terrified idiocy. Abuse of technology, of course it would be, of course—just when he had run—_

_Another flight. Walking, this time, deliberately out the door, deep in the icy detached coldness of prolonged emotional exhaustion._

_Father would look for him with Mae._

_Father would look for him with Alexius when that failed._

_But he had never been good at navigating the city beyond the Palaces. Had never thought to lower himself to it._

_And so Dorian left._

_How undramatic it sounded, stated like that._

 

 

The snow is an engulfing powdery drift across the world when they land, blurring the buildings of the port. The air chaps the Iron Bull's lips, steals moisture, freezes hair. Snow settles in distinct single flakes on their clothes and in their hair as they hurry across the icy ground to the terminal building.

Minrathous has cold poles, sure, but nobody who's anybody lives in those kinds of places. Minrathous city, for all its huge sprawl seems endless from the inside and for all its denizens would like to think it's the entire world, is limited to a fragment of the southern temperate zone. Qarinus sits in the tropics of its own planet. Nessum, though, is a cold world, its terraforming only partly successful. Even near the equator, _mild_ would be a generous description of the weather. Enough for a few crops, and the rest is mining.

Unsurprisingly, Dorian is looking vaguely shocked by this experience. Shoulders hunched, arms crossed and hands shoved up against his armpits. When he catches the Iron Bull looking, he makes a face of pure disgust.

"Lovely weather for a spot of archaeology," he says, sour.

"Funnily enough, that's why I wanted a disciple of Toth," Dagna calls back over her shoulder. "Magic hands!"

"It isn't magic," Dorian says.

"Tell that to people out here," Dagna says cheerfully. "They only meet your kinds of implants when someone comes to remind them who's really in charge. Come on, through here. Papers, then sledges. Maybe hire some better winter gear for _some_ of us." 

She and Sera are already properly suited up, snow goggles and heavy overalls. Sera's is offensively yellow. She's drawn a bee on the back with some kind of marker.

"You don't tell us we're going to spend time in the coldest part of a frozen shithole ahead of time, you don't get a fully equipped team," Krem calls, and Dagna just laughs.

"Do you know," Dorian says, in tones of horrified fascination, "I think my nose hairs have frozen."

Into the terminal, humidity misting on glass, the great main hall full of people shouting in languages that the Iron Bull mostly doesn't know. Quick scans of all of them, with Stitches trying not to look at Dorian, tension all over. Worried he hasn't done a good enough job disabling implants? Maybe. They made it through Station security.

But there's no AI for Dagna to charm here. 

But none of them get thrown in jail or detained until the next shuttle can remove them, so apparently Stitches hasn't lost his touch at all.

If the Iron Bull had come to Nessum on a job, really on a job, he'd have studied the local area quickly, and turned to the Qun for guidance, and received at least basic knowledge of a small selection of relevant languages. If he had been assigned to Nessum for any other job, he could have recalled the knowledge now.

But it's unknown to him. He has only the information he could scrape together on local hierarchies, on weather patterns, on one or two customs.

"Krem," he says, while Dagna, Dalish and Stitches are arguing in several different languages over the appropriate price for a sledge, "what languages you got here?"

"Not much," Krem says. "I was stationed in the north. We run into any Meadin for some reason, I'll ask them to put their guns away real nicely. But we're not going to, because most of them didn't. Fucking Tevinter." 

He sighs.

 

 

Really, there should be no great difficulty with Dagna's job as such. It's old technology they're picking up, Nevarran, corpse tools, and if a lot of people find that creepy it's not really like the Iron Bull has any room to comment. A lot of people outside the Qun see him as pretty much the same as the now-outlawed Nevarran corpse soldiers to begin with. You take a body, living or dead, and you make it a vessel. No waste.

"What, exactly, are you going to do with these pieces once you have them?" Dorian asks, as they go about the business of setting up camp for the night, pitching multi-layered tents, breaking the seals on small disposable heat panels. Muffled under his overalls. He stiffened right up when he heard what exactly the military technology was, hasn't really relaxed since.

"Oh, not create an army of creepy undead," Dagna says, way too unconcerned. "No, I'm just interested in how it _worked_. I'd love to study the Qunari version too, but"—a sidelong glance at the Iron Bull—"they're not really into sharing."

"Qunari are very into sharing," the Iron Bull says.

Dorian makes an indistinct noise behind his mask, _hah!_

Thinking of Qarinus, maybe. Of Rivain. Of the conversion of the indentured, presented in a thousand melodramas as exchanging hope for personal annihilation. 

Not wrong, at least in the sense that the Qun is evangelical. But the Qun is also into sharing among its own. Really sharing, needs met.

"Most empires have something like it," Dagna says as they haul themselves free from the outer layers of their clothing, everything damp left in the outer section of the main tent. "Orzammar too, although that was a simpler version, kind of. For hard labour, you know? They needed oversight all the time. A sort of early prototype. But for Nevarra or Tevinter or Par Vollen, it's different. Sometimes you make a body instead of using one that exists already, but you still have to control it. If you make a person, it's a person! Inconvenient, if you want it to do what you say and not ask questions."

Dorian's unease is obvious in the jerky movements of his hands. The Iron Bull hopes his own is better hidden. Dagna doesn't seem to notice or care, though, and everyone else is too busy, or pretending to be. Dorian looks over at him, questioning, not so much looking for the Iron Bull's mood as hoping he's got the answers, probably. The Iron Bull shrugs. What is there to say?

 

 

Unease becomes a thing that uncurls itself in the quiet darkness, stretches in the middle of the long night, flexing its joints. Dorian is too still to be asleep, his breathing too studied.

"Hey," the Iron Bull says. "You need to talk?"

"I _need, _" Dorian begins, seems to realise that his sharpness is uncalled for, stamps down on it. "I need to know whether my meeting with my old friend on Caimen station was by—hah—chance."__

__They're speaking Tevene, as they have when it's just the two of them for most of their acquaintance. The linguistic problem, or joke, is obvious: within the cult of the Dragons, chance is significance. The patterns of the stars in their scatter across the universe are meaningful, cast by the Dragons themselves in their youth. The spread of the bones and beads cast by the priest's hands is a mirror of this, reflects only a fragment of the pattern of the universe as willed by the Dragon that priest serves._ _

__That Dorian is cast into the path of a man he apparently has every reason to want to avoid—_ _

__"Has anyone ever told you that Tevinter is fucking weird," the Iron Bull says._ _

__"Oh, yes. Sera has told me daily for the last month. I suppose she isn't wrong. I don't suppose it's any stranger than anywhere else, really, but all the same."_ _

__All the same, its strangeness is a deadly sort. All the same, as an expansionist power it's second only to the Qun._ _

__"Do you think—" Dorian says._ _

__Silence._ _

__"I think," he says, instead, "that you're a person."_ _

__"Thinking a thing doesn't make it true," the Iron Bull says._ _

__"Is that how it is? We're all just making things up? Nice little illusions to amuse ourselves?"_ _

__Funny choice of word._ _

__The Iron Bull laughs. "Sure. Used to be part of my unit name. The idea. I was—we were Hissrad. Like—I guess in Tevinter you'd say keeper of illusions."_ _

__"We?" Dorian asks, and then, catching up, "Oh."_ _

__"Six segment unit," the Iron Bull says. "Fucking weird, only being able to see ahead of me." Open spaces are the worst. The sense of something at your back, something just beyond the corner of your vision._ _

__The white expanse of tundra, blurred by falling snow._ _

__"What," Dorian asks, and the rest of that sentence is easy enough to imagine, for all Dorian shuts it down. What happened?_ _

__What happened?_ _

__It happens again and again. Red on the neck—_ _

__"Segments die. Stop functioning. Go mad, sometimes."_ _

__"Even though you say they aren't people."_ _

__"Yeah."_ _

__Dorian makes a noise of irritation._ _

__"I'm the last one," the Iron Bull says. Hissrad Five, alone, alone, alone—no uncommon incident, no great moment of traumatic fracturing. Just attrition. Year after year. "Couldn't do it, not there. Turned myself over to be repurposed or destroyed."_ _

__"Dragons," Dorian says._ _

__"Not much like a person, right?" the Iron Bull says. "If you want to say I'm alive, that's alright. But I'm not a _person_."_ _

__"Bull—"_ _

__"Hey," the Iron Bull says. "Don't sweat it. Get some rest."_ _

__

__

__Slow progress across uneven terrain. Uneven rock, contours rounded by its coating of snow and ice, remains treacherous. Flat ice is better, although conceptually it makes the Iron Bull pretty fucking nervous to know that they're walking on the damn sea, the chasm of it below the feet, dark things moving below the surface._ _

__Dark things moving just out of the corner of the eye, just there, to the left. The landscape is open. And yeah, there it is: he can't see what's behind them unless he turns, can't see what's to the left without losing sight of what's to the right._ _

__It crawls across his skin, the wrongness of it, just as much as it ever did. Minrathous was easier like that; networks of narrow streets, easy to find corners, easy to limit the angles you could be approached from._ _

__"Relax," Krem says, smacks him on the back of the shoulder. "We've got it."_ _

__"That obvious, huh," the Iron Bull says._ _

__"Uh, yeah. Pretty much."_ _

__Dorian laughs, although who knows if he really understands the joke. Who knows what he's actually thinking at all, after last night._ _

__"Right at the edge of the bay," Dagna calls. "Food and going over the plan. Only two kilometers now."_ _

__

__

__There's the site, lying low in a scooped-out hollow with a shape that suggests an old quarry, steep on the right and straight ahead, sloping up to a rocky overhang on the left. A couple of archaeologists with their assistants are huddled together, despairing of dealing with the frozen rocky ground. Triangulation gear, scanners on their stands hunched like awkward three-legged birds, bodies starkly black against the snow. A housing unit already half-buried on one side, angled lights. That's all fine._ _

__"Dagna," the Iron Bull says, low and urgent, "those guys up there on the ledge to the right—"_ _

__"Not with the project, I think," Dagna says. "Looking sort of shifty, aren't they."_ _

__The figures fall out of sight again. Not gone, though. Not a fucking chance._ _

__"Alright," the Iron Bull says, and signals Krem, Rocky and Skinner to fall back, circle round. "You take Dorian and do your thing. We'll cover."_ _

__No way to read faces under all their winter gear, but Dorian hesitates for a moment, body still turned towards the Iron Bull after Dagna has started moving away. One heartbeat, two, three. An undecipherable message._ _

__He goes._ _

__Keep them as a background, Dagna's easy chatter with the project leader, the words made indistinct by a rushing burst of wind. Dorian kneels in the rectangle where the snow and ice have been hacked away to make a trench, bends over something the Iron Bull can't immediately see, can't spare the attention to figure out. Hands cupped around something. An assistant joins him, a heating unit glowing orange between them. Dorian's hands glowing, too._ _

__Figures on another ridge. They're in a sunken position here, vulnerable. Could have people on three sides of them before they know what's happened._ _

__Probably already do, paranoia offers. But that's why his boys are scouting around._ _

__‹‹ Clear over to your left now, ›› Krem says in the Iron Bull's head. ‹‹ Can't be a big group or they would have left people here to cover all the angles. Watch the other side. ››_ _

__‹‹ Don't need to tell me that, ›› the Iron Bull says._ _

__"Sir," Stitches says, urgent, glancing up past the Iron Bull._ _

__"Down," the Iron Bull says, moving as he speaks._ _

__The crack of gunfire. The leg of one of the tripods gives out, the scanner on top of it thudding down into the snow where the Bull had been standing._ _

__An unthinking calculation. Angle, distance, if he just had his fucking shield instead of this substitute external—_ _

__His gun is in his hand, aimed._ _

__‹‹ Dorian, ›› he says, silent to be sure he's heard, ‹‹ hurry it up or get out the damn way. ››_ _

__No chance to look back at the dig site to see what anyone else is doing, only one body, only one eye, damn it, damn it—_ _

__But he's still what he is._ _

__The quick flash of armour as a figure ducks out of sight, too quick for Stitches or Grim to follow._ _

__‹‹ Krem, ›› the Iron Bull says, ‹‹ you guys good? ››_ _

__No answer._ _

__‹‹ Dorian, ›› the Iron Bull tries._ _

__Nothing. Nothing._ _

__In the jungle two segments of Hissrad are abruptly wrenched from each other, from the rest of their unit. Huddle together in the creeping fog, one but two, deadened, disunited._ _

__Stepping back they come up against one another, unable to see—segments two and four, on the perimeter, lost to them—_ _

__There, Hissrad says, gun levelled; quick steps away from itself, a shot, a shot. Before the fog grows too dense, before it is entirely isolated._ _

__And:_ _

__Wait, Hissrad cries, don't—_ _

__The Iron Bull grits his teeth. Snow, not fog. Communications blocked all the same, and who, how, why?_ _

__"Stay put," he tells his guys. "Get cover, get your gear ready." Takes off, off to the back of the hollow and up the left hand slope, following the underside of an outcrop, covered—from the angle the last shot came from, at least._ _

__"For fuck's sake," Stitches says, behind him._ _

__The crust of the snow cracks under his feet, the powdery layer beneath keeping the worst of the underlying ice from his feet. Up and up, careful, careful, listen—_ _

__Muffled voices, too distant for ordinary hearing. Tevene. One speaks low Tevene, the dialect Vyrantian maybe. The other has the same aristocratic accent markers as Dorian, although less pronounced. Maybe Palaces, maybe pretentious._ _

__"—just be gone. He's there somewhere."_ _

__Alright. Cutting communications goes both ways. Counts on the Chargers being more spread out, being less prepared for it; doesn't count on the Iron Bull being what he is._ _

__He walks. Very, very carefully, inching up towards the top of the ridge, overhang providing better cover now._ _

__The snow just above his head creaks with a heavy footfall. Off-balance. Careless. A curse._ _

__It's in High Tevene._ _

__Fucking High Tevene. No damn mercenaries with delusions of grandeur are gonna pull that shit out, the history book shit that only shows up for vulgarity or superiority._ _

__Points to Dagna, then._ _

__The Iron Bull braces himself, hand stretched up against the underside of the ledge. Wait, wait, breathe. His armour is an external unit, Starkhaven made, not up to Qunari standard. Calculate: if they're using Tevinter military issue light guns then his armour can effectively disperse the force of approximately twenty shots. The force of the shots against the shield will turn bruising after twelve. If they're using Tevinter military issue armour then there's no damn point shooting at them at all without Qunari ballistic weaponry to match; heavy crushing force is gonna do more._ _

__If they're using some experimental shit the Hierophants only give to the Palaces then all bets are off._ _

__Don't think about it._ _

__You can only do what you can do._ _

__It is to be, Tama says. In all things meaning._ _

__In Tevinter they make casts and give meaning to the fall of them. No coincidence in the shape of the universe. Games of chance, games of significance._ _

__In Qunandar the fall of events themselves is enough. What meaning does prediction have?_ _

__Footsteps, discernible now he knows there are people above him. One person. Two people. Do they know there's an overhang? Hard to see, the snow blurring the edges. No shadows in the overcast weather. No reason for them to think anyone beneath the overhang could vault up if they know it's there at all._ _

__"Can't get a clear shot," one says. "Fucking snow. Think they're behind the cabin. There."_ _

__"The rest—"_ _

__One of them is kneeling, shifting their weight back and forth to find stability, help their aim. The thud of equipment on the frozen rock, the click of the safety being removed from a gun. Below, faint movement of dark shapes. Impossible to say who._ _

__Focus on the targets. They're above him. Where? Right _there_ —_ _

__The Iron Bull lunges up, rough gloves gripping a hollow in the rock, up, up, over the edge—not far, not all the way. Just far enough._ _

__The crack of a rifle shot is simultaneous with a cry of alarm as the Iron Bull's hand closes around the gunman's arm._ _

__He yanks._ _

__They tumble._ _

__The angle of the slope isn't overly steep, and so they don't tumble far. The Iron Bull's boot finds purchase against a boulder, brings them to a jarring halt._ _

__The Iron Bull grits his teeth against the flare of pain in his ankle. Tightens his arm around the neck of the unfortunate gunman._ _

__His companion, the noble, has his own gun out; has it trained on the Iron Bull. Good distance between them, and he's not using a rifle. Only one hand on the gun, too. Other's at his waist. Could be some new kind of trouble, but it'll fuck with his shooting accuracy anyway._ _

__"Don't think so," the Iron Bull calls. Bravado. "Got your guy here. You put that gun down nice and easy."_ _

__"He's shielded," noble accent says. "A better shield than yours, it looks like. I'll take my chances."_ _

__"Won't do him much good if I break his damn neck," the Iron Bull says. "You guys never learn. Think bullets are the only thing to worry about."_ _

__"Fuck," the man he's holding says, really scared now; twists uselessly against the Iron Bull's grip. But the Iron Bull's strong, stronger even than he looks. Plants his weight. Increases the pressure of his arm._ _

__For a silent moment it seems like it might work. It's not going to. But it could._ _

__It doesn't._ _

__It's not the shot that really fucks it up, though. A shot alone the Iron Bull could've dealt with, gotten out the damn way, balanced his weight so it didn't shift him._ _

__But, the moment before the gun fires, communications snap back on._ _

__Words in a rush, fragmenting, Dorian, Skinner, Krem—disorienting, distracting—_ _

__‹‹ —chief— ››_ _

__‹‹ —two— ››_ _

__‹‹ —think— ››_ _

__‹‹ —shit, are you— ››_ _

__Only for a fraction of a second. But a fraction of a second is enough._ _

__The crack of a shot, the thud of impact against the Iron Bull's shoulder, shield rippling silver with shockwaves._ _

__The man he's holding throws his weight backward._ _

__The Iron Bull, wrenched off balance by the combined force of the bullet and his captive's suddenly shifted weight, falls; twists his arm heavily around his captive's neck on reflex. A shocked grunt from the man, windpipe blocked, neck twisting unnaturally._ _

__The Iron Bull grunts at the force of his impact with the ground, meters back from where he was standing, the slope adding its own force, the drop greater than it should be._ _

__Ringing silence in his head again. The back of his skull aches, a dull throb in time with his pulse. Shoulder's out of alignment, the angle of his landing bad. The body—it's a body now, the guy who made him fall—only a body. The body's heavy on the Iron Bull's chest._ _

__Might have cracked a rib or two._ _

__At least, he thinks, in that indistinct moment, I didn't fuck the ankle up any more._ _

__Get up._ _

__Get _up_._ _

__He rolls off to the side as another shot is fired from above him, up onto his knees. His chest burns, sharp pain low on the right side, seventh and eighth ribs. He's unsure of his damn ankle. He'll have to try it soon, can't just sit here waiting to be shot, got to—_ _

__But there's more going on around him, not just the blank snowscape with a couple of solitary figures that he expected. Someone's running, shouts across the snow. Common and Tevene, he thinks, but it's hard to hear, directed away from him. Two people running up as one descends, Tevinter noble running down, looking for a better shot at the Iron Bull maybe—not smart at all, not military, not combat trained. Just arrogant._ _

__And who runs up to meet him?_ _

__Fire bursts across the snow, a wild thing, rearing and thrashing, barely reined in. Dorian. Dorian. Dorian._ _

__The Iron Bull lumbers finally to his feet, finds to his relief that his ankle takes his weight._ _

__On the crest of the ridge, three more figures are dropping into shooting position. Krem? Let it be Krem._ _

__And yeah, there's Dorian, clear in a sudden lull in the wind that drops the snow for a moment from the air. Stitches is covering him._ _

__Fire, fire, not the carefully controlled heat he's shown off around the Iron Bull, but still brutal, vicious, melting the snow around him where he's scuffling with the noble asshole._ _

__Dorian's hand, finally, around the man's throat, pinning him to the slope._ _

__They're engulfed. The skin must blister, singe. The man's scream doesn't last long, can't, not when his throat's a wreck, must be a wreck, and the smell of it—_ _

__Doesn't take that much to tear through a shield after all. Just fucked up technology that looks too much like magic. Just enough motivation._ _

__It's not a pretty death. Deaths generally aren't, and all the same—_ _

__The Iron Bull runs to them, ignoring the sharp protest of his ankle._ _

__"I suppose," Dorian says, into the slightly shocked silence, words so faint that they're barely audible through clothing, through the renewed force of the wind, "that my academic curiosity on the point of burning a man's face off must now be considered satisfied."_ _

__He looks like he's going to throw up, distress clear in the set of his eyes behind his mask, and that's the only part of the whole thing that's keeping the Iron Bull from any deeper fear. Not many people are flippant in the face of death up close and personal, but what isn't Dorian flippant in the face of?_ _

__Dorian bows to the half-melted snow. Hand flat in the pool he's made._ _

__Flippant. Sure._ _

__

__

__Count the bodies, take stock. Three taken by surprise by Krem to the east of the site, the Tevinter noble who fell to Dorian. His companion who threw the Iron Bull down the slope, neck broken. It was the noble who held the device which blocked communications; Dagna has it shut off in no time, and the Iron Bull doesn't comment when she pockets it. Fair enough, when she's paying them. Stitches fusses at the Iron Bull, insists on correctives for the ankle and the ribs._ _

__"That's all?" Skinner asks, disgusted._ _

__"Guess they only expected local resistance," the Iron Bull says. "Not many people around here who could deal with military gear. Hey, we got ID on any of them?"_ _

__There wouldn't be anything, if they were smart. No real reason to think they _would_ have been smart, though._ _

__Dorian, still kneeling in the snow, makes a muffled noise of—disgust? Dismay? Hard to read anyone under so much clothing. Hard to read Dorian often enough anyway, for all he shows emotion._ _

__"I know who this one is, at least," Dorian says. Tired. Blank, nearly. "An old friend, I suppose you could say."_ _

__"Same way Eleon's an old friend?"_ _

__"Yes," Dorian says. "It's—I don't—I—" He straightens his shoulders, shifts his weight back onto this heels to look up at the Iron Bull. And his face really is stricken. Is it just death after all? Is it the knowledge of the person dead, the ability to compare the living being with the dead thing? "We were political enemies in Minrathous. Iunius and Eleon both."_ _

__Coincidence, coincidence, coincidence._ _

__"Let's get this shit sorted out before any more of your old friends show up," the Iron Bull says. "Bodies outside the perimeter, and Dagna's archaeologist friends can call law enforcement about them when we're gone. How was recovery going?"_ _

__Dorian shrugs. "It was going. I suppose I should go and finish it up." He sounds so damn tired._ _

__Figures._ _

__Corpse soldier implants, old but functional, still sending out a distress signal that the scanners had picked up long before the permafrost had been breached. People Dorian knows, on the station and on the planet. Nothing quite like that tech in Tevinter, for all they pride themselves on their ability to create, to recreate and to transform the human. And all the same, it's not like there's much general value to it when you can create bodies as efficiently as Tevinter synthetic facilities._ _

__It's a conversation for later, for silence on the track back to the port or for a late night in a tent._ _

__

__

__Sunset, the snow turned to sheets of gold and silver._ _

__‹‹ You want to know, ›› Dorian says silently, ‹‹ if I know what they're doing here. ››_ _

__‹‹ Sure, ›› the Iron Bull says. ‹‹ Could be good to know. Just an idea. ››_ _

__‹‹ I don't, ›› Dorian says._ _

__If he was speaking aloud, the Iron Bull imagines, that'd have been waspish._ _

__If he was speaking aloud, maybe the lie would have been obvious in his tone._ _

__‹‹ But you've got some theories, ›› the Iron Bull says. ‹‹ Smart guy like you. ››_ _

__‹‹ I don't, ›› Dorian says, but the silence that follows is telling._ _

__The Iron Bull lets him have it, lets him weigh the thing by himself. Ahead of them, Dalish and Skinner are in charge of the sledge while Rocky, knee wrenched fighting, sits and plays back seat driver. It's a measure of how much Skinner likes him that she's actually laughing and not fidgeting with a weapon. It's a harsh thing, Skinner's laughter, but it's good to hear it. She never used to laugh._ _

__‹‹ I have a theory, ›› Dorian says at length. ‹‹ But I may simply be assigning too much importance to something, well, personal. ››_ _

__‹‹ Shoot, ›› the Iron Bull says._ _

__Wishes, with sudden sharp longing, he could see anything of Dorian but the shape of him. That he could know his mood from the inside out._ _

__‹‹ Before I left, I learnt that my former mentor had joined a sort of cult, ›› Dorian says. ‹‹ A sort of cult I would never have expected him to have anything to do with. Tevinter supremacists, you know—imagine all the worst sorts of excesses and violations your people's propaganda assigns to the Palaces. He was opposed, when I worked with him, and then suddenly he needed something and they were the very best of friends. ››_ _

__His words are text in the Iron Bull's vision, like he doesn't trust even the reproduced approximation of his voice._ _

__‹‹ And these not-friends of yours are part of the same cult, ›› the Iron Bull says._ _

__‹‹ Yes. I spied on them once. ››_ _

__‹‹ Figured. And you think that what he needed was—? ››_ _

__‹‹ Corpse soldier technology, ›› Dorian says. ‹‹ For a very personal goal. One I would be loath to see him achieve, I might add. ››_ _

__Another silence, an empty space that takes them up off the ice and across a low island._ _

__‹‹ The things that fathers are willing to do to their sons, in fear, ›› Dorian says._ _

__No, not for. It wouldn't be _for.__ _

__

__

__Little enough to say of the journey out, otherwise. It is as it is. Wearying, long. The landscape is oppressively wide, oppressively empty. A shock all over again to step back into the port, into the close, loud atmosphere of the terminal buildings. A hired shuttle this time, quicker, easier to transport goods._ _

__"At least the shuttle journey is a short one," Dorian says. "You dislike shuttles, yes?"_ _

__"Something like that," the Iron Bull says, although he hadn't figured Dorian would have noticed anything like that._ _

__But Dorian notices a lot. Too much, maybe._ _

__And they leave. That's all. Simple._ _

__

__

__On the station docks, a figure stands out even on the shuttle's slightly grainy display. Eleon, robed in deep blue, haughty among the workers, looks irritably at bay after bay. Twitches his hand—summoning the schedules, maybe. Turns, as the door of their shuttle hisses open, to look at them—not like he's looking for _them_ , not exactly, although the sight of them definitely brings him to attention._ _

__The Iron Bull swings himself out of the shuttle into the gravity of the station without stumbling for once, one step behind Dorian. Coincidence, again; convenient._ _

__He squares himself, keeps to Dorian's back, one pace to the side, one pace behind. Staff, but not indentured._ _

__"Dorian," Eleon says, sweeping over like nobody else is there; people get out of his way, because of course they do. The kind of guy who looks like he could buy your planet for a laugh isn't going to do anything good if you run into him. "What a delightful coincidence. You must be exhausted after the journey—allow me to invite you to tea this time, won't you? I can't imagine you've had anything civilised for ages."_ _

__The Iron Bull doesn't need to see Dorian's face for this one. Doesn't really want to, honestly—a dead body in the snow, evasive words._ _

__"Of course," Dorian says, with uncomfortable blandness. "Do you have a favoured tea-house here? I admit, I haven't had the time to find an establishment."_ _

__"There's none worth the name," Eleon says. "But I have rooms of my own, and tea from my family's own plantations."_ _

__"An offer entirely too tempting to refuse," Dorian says._ _

__‹‹ You sure? ›› the Iron Bull asks. ‹‹ No friend with your back out here. ››_ _

__‹‹ It's an opportunity, ›› Dorian replies. Only that. No confirmation of distrust._ _

__No confirmation of trust._ _

__‹‹ I'll come along, ›› the Iron Bull says. ‹‹ Like a good bodyguard. ››_ _

__‹‹ Played that role often, have you? ››_ _

__‹‹ Sure, ›› the Iron Bull says. ‹‹ Played all sorts of roles. Let me know if there's anything you're into. ››_ _

__A few quick words with his boys and they make their way out of the crowds, over to the lifts. Eleon doesn't react to the Iron Bull's continued presence; doesn't look at him or remark upon him. It'd be impolite. Private by the standards of this social circle involves an inevitable collection of servants and staff, and to draw attention to the fact is gauche._ _

__Sera's favourite, that one._ _

__Vashoth aren't usually personal servants. But maybe Dorian doesn't have the kind of reputation that makes that a consideration. Probably doesn't, all things considered._ _

__The flicker of floors passing, grey, grey, grey—and sudden brilliant green, brightly lit, the glass walls of the elevator coming into their own as it drops down into the living heart of the station where huge tangles of plants breathe out oxygen, filter the air. Beautiful and essential._ _

__Of course Eleon's rooms overlook it. Best rooms in stations tend to have something to do with the gardens._ _

__So:_ _

__On a balcony, shielded for relative privacy, Dorian and Eleon sit on low benches with tea things laid out between them._ _

__The Iron Bull stands, statue-still._ _

__An elven woman with incongruously pale skin and dusty brown hair bends to place small cakes on the table._ _

__Station, the Iron Bull thinks, are you watching this shit?_ _

__Station doesn't read minds, though. Only feelings._ _

__Probably it's watching anyway. Probably it's interested. Powerful people, people who might be threatening. Or useful._ _

__People, also, who arrived with Dagna and her peculiar ship._ _

__Good. Witness it. All of it._ _

__"You were quite right, of course," Dorian is saying. "The planet is a charming little pit. But duty is duty, and now it's done. I may even regain feeling in my feet one day. I wonder that you can stand to stay even in its proximity for any extended period."_ _

__His accent is changed, grown more pronounced, a display. Ridiculous, dangerous._ _

__A Naja spreads its hood, threat and defense at once. Step carefully by the river, Hissrad. Snakes lie in the hollows._ _

__"I have excellent rooms, as you see," Eleon says. "An advantage to staying on an underpopulated station. If I hurried on to Vol Dorma I'd be stuck in a single room in some hotel."_ _

__"I see," Dorian says. "Do you have travelling companions? I imagine this would be a rather wretched place to stay alone, however fine the view. It is very fine, I do grant you that."_ _

__"Thank you," Eleon says, as though he had personally constructed the tiers of the garden, the small cascading streams of water that feed it._ _

__He means to ignore the question and hope that Dorian will move on from it, but Dorian, silent, only lifts his tea; looks out past the shimmering line of the barrier at the limit of the balcony. A waiting silence, very polite. No urgency here, oh no, definitely not; Dorian is paying a social call._ _

__With a bodyguard._ _

__Here's the game: there are too many people here for one travelling retinue, too many rooms, and Dorian knows it, and Eleon knows that he knows it. Conceding the information or not is pointless, and they're still going to play at it as if it matters._ _

__"No, you're right of course," Eleon says finally. "I have friends with me. A fine tour it would be without friends. Although I see you don't mind it. A curious staff you have."_ _

__Not even a flicker of his eyes towards the Iron Bull._ _

__"I do, don't I," Dorian says, like he's proud of it. "I do like to stand out. I always say that the worst crime one can commit is dullness."_ _

__Eleon laughs. "Too much eccentricity grows predictable, you know."_ _

__"Too much eccentricity, he says." Dorian smiles. "How quaint. I don't seem to recall you objecting before."_ _

__"Don't you," Eleon says. Leans in closer. "Think harder. I can think of a lesson or two—"_ _

__Flirtatious, or an appearance of flirtation._ _

__Something shifts in Dorian. His posture grows, for the space of a blink, stiff. And it's gone._ _

__He laughs._ _

__"They can't have been very good lessons," he says, teasing. "I do seem to recall—no, no, it's gone."_ _

__‹‹ Alright? ›› The Iron Bull asks._ _

__‹‹ Yes, of course, ›› Dorian replies. ‹‹ Who among us has never fucked someone who was utterly unmemorable? ››_ _

__The situation rubbing off on his private communications. Not lying, but there's a silence somewhere in there._ _

__"I could try again," Eleon says. Condescension. "But perhaps you're not interested, now that I don't have any sensitive information on hand for you to mess with while I'm distracted?"_ _

__There it is._ _

__An unexpected burst of pride, warm in his throat. Dorian's been playing everyone._ _

__Good on him._ _

__"Hmm," Dorian says. "Perhaps I'm not. How is Iunius, by the way? It's been so long."_ _

__Ouch._ _

__"Well enough," Eleon says, but his eyes flicker off to the side, his hand shifting briefly on his knee. "He doesn't like the cold much better than you do."_ _

__"Tsk," Dorian says. "And he went downwell anyway? I thought you were on a tour, not an exercise in masochism."_ _

__"He hoped to see the aurora," Eleon says. "Frightfully boring, if you ask me. So many planets have them."_ _

__"Well, I hope he appreciated it," Dorian says. "He always was peculiar."_ _

__A body in the snow._ _

__Eleon laughs._ _

__‹‹ Station, ›› the Iron Bull says, unvoiced words undirected, merely spoken in hope of response. ‹‹ Who rents these rooms? ››_ _

__A moment of emptiness when he feels he may not have been heard, Dorian and Eleon's politely snide conversation the only thing he hears._ _

__‹‹ The Iron Bull, ›› Station says. ‹‹ Why do you want to know? ››_ _

__‹‹ Because they're a threat to the people on this station, ›› the Iron Bull says._ _

__‹‹ To specific people, you mean. You aren't a very good Qunari. ››_ _

__‹‹ I know, ›› the Iron Bull says. ‹‹ And yeah. Specific people. But they won't give a crap about collateral either. ››_ _

__Station is silent again._ _

__Then it gives him three names, with one of them noted as deceased._ _


	8. Knowledge of the Complex

_Down, down, down onto the streets of the city. Into filthy alleys. Into a terrible bed, into a bar with no trace of class. Don't search._

_Just let yourself be found._

_Drink alone._

_And there—_

_The Iron Bull, the man said._

_Vashoth?_

_Tal._

_And he was so attractive, huge and scarred, his smile beautiful in the moment before it slid into a suggestive grin. And maybe—_

_Maybe Dorian could use him._

 

 

The Priesthood, Tama says, is interpretation. It is its work to interpret, and the act of work is the act of creating identity.

One segment of Hissrad kneels a pace behind her. Stretches out the pieces of the tea set for her to lay one by one on the mat before her as she talks. 

Young Tamassrans, Tamassrans who are not Hissrad's, face her in a circle. Few beads and fewer knots, their hair unbraided—not quite adult. 

Tama gestures to Hissrad. What is this?

A thing, one of the young Tamassrans says. She means an object, perhaps, but the word is the same as outsider. For a Qunari, maybe the distinction's irrelevant.

No, Tama says. I reject this interpretation. A thing does not feel. If it acts, it acts without direction. A thing is useless. Do you have a justification to make me change my mind?

A headshake.

It is a tool, another says.

Yes, it is a tool. And what are you?

A hesitating silence.

A tool, she says, uncertain. I am a tool of the Qun.

Very good, Tama says. I put it to you that you are a tool of interpretation. Of guidance. This is a tool of balance. Are you and it the same?

Of course not!

Why? Tama asks. Explain the difference to me. Interpret.

It is made, one of the women says. We are born.

Nonsense, Tama says. I am making you at this very moment. Your own Tamassrans made you when they selected your roles and recommended your implants. This thing was born. It was a body before it was this. Try again.

Laughter, although Tama is very serious. Hissrad can't see her face, but it can see her shoulders, so straight, and that is enough.

What is the difference?

The Iron Bull can't remember. What's the distinction? However he fumbles after it, it escapes him.

You really think it was simpler then?

What is simplicity?

Tama says—Tama says— 

Simplicity is ignorance.

You think that this thing we have created can be simply defined? It is alive. It may have an identity. It is—

It is.

You will remember, Tama says.

Tama, why will I remember?

Tama—

Blackness. A shadow—

"Bull," Dorian says, low into the dark bedroom, voice rough, sleep-heavy. "Is something wrong?"

"Can't sleep," the Iron Bull says. "No reason why I shouldn't be able to. Just a routine protocol."

But he's suffered from insomnia for a long damn time.

The light above the bed flickers on, the whine of it on the very edge of hearing. One sparse hotel room, the semi-privacy that they'd lacked their first night on the station granted them now, only the two of them in the cramped space.

Dorian's silence is meaningful.

"Hey, Dorian," the Iron Bull says, closes his eye, the darkness he finds there tinged red by the lamp. "What if you never know what happened to you?"

Dorian's arm is tense against the Iron Bull's chest. Intimate even in uneasiness. Fucking is one thing, they've fucked plenty, but this—

Shouldn't have let Dorian take him apart. But he wanted it. Wants it, again. Again.

I don't trust you, Dorian says, and sounds less like he means it every time. Softens it by falling asleep against the Iron Bull's side. Confessional words.

Let that be real.

"I probably never will," Dorian says. "I could ask my father, I suppose, but why should I trust his answer? To be frank, if he recreated me in the hope of changing me, why should I get close enough to him to allow him to—to correct the mistakes in his programming?"

Overrides aren't uncommon, exactly. Not the definitive answer Dorian's going for, even if it'd be an answer.

"Got your back if you want to," the Iron Bull says. Means it, though he shouldn't. A pretty idea, dying for someone you care about. He's been ready to fall apart for years now. And still—

"Do you," Dorian says. "Are we giving up on pretense, then? Or are we only playing an even more complicated game?"

The bed shifts as Dorian moves. Loss of contact.

The Iron Bull opens his eye, winces at the brightness. 

Dorian, sitting, looks down at him. Arms around his knees.

"Don't know what you want me to say," the Iron Bull tells him. He feels fucking tired, insomnia and emotional uncertainty, this whole tangled mess.

"Some con artist," Dorian says. "Isn't that your business?"

"Isn't it yours?" the Iron Bull asks. "Not exactly lulling me into a false sense of security here."

" _Fuck,_ " Dorian says. Sighs. "All these theoreticals are a delightful headache, but we do have some immediate material problems. I suppose I ought to be focusing on those. They are primarily mine, after all."

But the rest is nagging at him. Has been, the whole time, ever since he ran. Easy to figure out that part of Dorian, at least.

More surprising how taken aback the Iron Bull was by Dorian at tea with the enemy, viciously needling. He knew, he thought about Dorian in his natural element, and then—

And then, seeing it, felt uneasy anyway.

"Dagna'll have some ideas," the Iron Bull says. "Got some ideas myself. But maybe not in the middle of the damn night."

"It's not as though we're sleeping," Dorian says.

"Not like we're at our sharpest, either."

Dorian makes a quiet little noise of frustrated amusement, another of his voiced exhales, _hah_.

The Iron Bull shifts, feels the twinge in his right hip that's been bothering him since the trek through the snow downwell. Turns himself with a grunt away from the pain, towards Dorian; up to sit, weight to one side, one horn resting against the blank white wall.

Dorian's fucking Venatori friends had the right idea, sticking close to the gardens. There's a reason those places are prized.

Why should he care?

But he does. Dislikes the sterility of this room, the low singing of the lightbulbs, the air processing unit humming an octave below them.

Even in the desert—

Don't think about that.

"So what, exactly, are we meant to do with this wretched night?" Dorian asks.

"Could always fuck," the Iron Bull says. "Hear that's pretty distracting."

It isn't a real suggestion, and Dorian doesn't take it as such; just snorts, inelegant.

Silence. The Iron Bull feels sleep dragging at him, pulling his eye closed, like he could fall asleep sitting up where he hadn't been able to manage it when he was actually lying in bed.

"You think of me as a person," Dorian says.

The words are soft, and it takes a moment for them to resolve into meaning. In the Iron Bull's tired mind, Tevene become alien, filtered incomprehensibly through the Qunlat he hasn't spoken aloud in years.

It isn't a question, of course.

The Iron Bull shrugs one shoulder.

"Sure."

"Why?"

"You should ask Dagna that question," the Iron Bull says. "Think you'd get a kick out of the answer."

"I'm asking you right now," Dorian says.

"Look," the Iron Bull says. "Someone called Dorian Pavus definitely existed at some point, right? There was some rich shit who walked around fucking his enemies and annoying his family."

Dorian laughs, like that description of him is honestly delightful. "Yes, this is true."

"And you can't tell if you're him or not."

"Also true," Dorian says.

"So I guess—what I'm thinking is, it doesn't really matter. You're so like him nobody can tell the damn difference, right? You feel like him, even though you're afraid that's fake."

"Yes," Dorian says. Wary.

"If you can't tell the difference between a forgery and the real thing, even as an expert, maybe it doesn't matter anymore," the Iron Bull says. "Nobody's fucking checking your providence like a painting. You look like a person and you feel like you're a person. You're in an organic body. Maybe time to just get on with shit."

"And you?" Dorian asks.

"Not the same. I'm not a copy of a person. I'm a body being used as a carrier for a bunch of Qunari tech."

"And yet," Dorian says, "you seem to care a great deal for your team."

Emotion is necessary.

"Yeah," the Iron Bull says, tired. "Guess I do."

 

 

"Alright," Dagna says. Chirpy, armed with an indeterminate warm drink in a crudely painted pink cup. The common area of the ship is rearranged, chairs pulled around a low table. No good having these kinds of conversations on the station. "So we've found our little problem, and you think you know what they're up to."

"Regrettably," Dorian says. He's looking worn, the contrast to Dagna striking. "I don't believe there's any political master plan here—they _are_ politically active, extremists, this much I know for certain, and this does relate to that. But I think they mostly want your charming little piece of technology as payment. A bribe, I suppose, in exchange for support."

"This one specifically?" the Iron Bull asks. "Or, uh—this kind of thing?"

"Not much difference, practically," Dagna says. "There's nothing else like it in Tevinter territory, and if they're supremacists, I don't think they're going to try and steal from the Qunari."

Dorian laughs. "Hardly."

Qunari implants are for the subhuman. Apart from physiological differences, they're a good deal more impure than anything Nevarran, which is after all only a part of Tevinter that refuses to acknowledge the fact—at least, if you're a particularly devout kind of Tevinter asshole who likes living in the past. In practice Nevarra and Tevinter are sibling civilisations, the distinction a fine one—something which has tended to make their conflicts more, rather than less, bloody.

And still, they're human enough to borrow from.

"Qunari implants don't work the same way anyway," the Iron Bull says. "Not to keep the dead moving. They're for healthy bodies. Can't take the strain of adjusting otherwise."

A flicker of discomfort from Dorian.

Interest from Dagna, her intensity shifting in the Iron Bull's direction.

He shrugs. "No point asking me for details about that crap," he says. "I am it. Don't make it."

It's one thing to say it aloud to his guys. An odd kind of resistance to the words in front of anyone else.

"Anyway," Dorian says, "there's no particular substitute to be had, so I imagine that they'll want yours. It won't take them terribly long to realise that you have it, of course. We're a memorable group."

"Oh, I know," Dagna says. "I'm sure it'll be fine. We're very clever."

"And there you have it," Dorian says. "They need the implants we have, and I'm sure they'd very much like us dead as a bonus. Well, me in particular, but I should think they're quite annoyed with you lot as well. Perhaps we might focus on specifics?"

"Can't touch them on the station," Dagna says. "That'd be messy. Station wouldn't like it at all. Can't fight their ship straight out. I've been taking a look at it, and it's a lot bigger and pointier than mine. Big guns. Heavy, but crude. Still, I don't think we want to explode."

"Sabotage," the Iron Bull says.

"Could still be messy," Dorian says. Sighs. "No, no, go on, tell me how I'm wrong. I can see you itching to do it."

"Don't have to kill them," the Iron Bull says. "Fuck up their sensors, fuck up propulsion. Strand them."

"Easier said than done," Dorian says. "An AI can fix those things quickly enough."

"Hey," the Iron Bull says, keeps it light though anxiety is building in him at what he's about to suggest, heavy pressure against the inside of his ribs, "I can take care of that. I'm military tech, remember?"

"Um," Dagna says.

They both look at her.

"It doesn't have to work for long," she says. "I can maybe possibly just gate us out on our own power. We set a course towards the Hasmal gate, we cut their sensors. For all they know, we took the gate."

"Hm," Dorian says.

Dagna looks up at him, smiling in a vaguely alarming kind of way. "It's not like they have any kind of official clearance for what they're doing, right? No reason for them to get hold of the gate beacon's data or any of the alarms we'll set off by gating. At least, not quickly. And _not quickly_ gets us a long way."

Dorian gestures acknowledgement.

"Not like they can turn around easily if they rush into the gate after us," Dagna says. "People love to make assumptions. I think it'd work."

"That—" Dorian says.

"—is very, very illegal," Dagna finishes. "I don't mind."

"I was going to say impossible, but certainly."

"Don't believe anyone who tells you things are impossible," Dagna says. "They usually just mean really, really improbable. I'm good at improbable, didn't you know?"

The Iron Bull thinks of her workroom. Thinks of her casual conversation with the ship, her assurances that the 13th Palace Station would let them go unnoticed.

"No shit," he says. "I'd have just gone for changing trajectory while they went in circles. Switch the gate."

Dagna laughs. "I know. But that wouldn't be much fun, would it?"

"Dragons," Dorian says.

 

 

And so there's Sera, suited up.

"Guess we get to find out how you got our gear on board after all," Krem says.

Sera shrugs. "Could've asked."

"And you would've just told us?" Rocky, doubtful.

"Well, no."

It's flat, off, trying to follow a script for humour when they're all on edge. Dorian is back on the station with Dalish and Grim, visible on the main concourse; buying time before his _friends_ begin to think they're going to need to rush back to their ship. 

Nobody says: hope he's worth it.

Nobody says: nice mess you've gotten us into, boss.

Running with politicians and smugglers.

But who else have they ever run with, after all? It's just a question of how much they're getting back. Or not getting back.

But there's some kind of private agreement between them, all of his guys, that this is somehow worthwhile. Fuck knows what they say to each other when he's not there. 

Dagna tosses Sera a clear box of little discs, black and smooth on one side, ridged on the other. Sera roots through, grabs a selection and fits them into a bag clipped to her hip. Rummages through a box of her own for some smaller discs, similar in appearance, and presses three to the left arm of her suit, two to the right. 

The whole thing has the look of long-established routine.

"Alright," the Iron Bull says, "I'll bite. What the crap are those?"

"Not had that much to do with Dwarves, huh?" Dagna asks. "Bet your explosive friend here knows what kind of thing they are, even if he probably hasn't seen anything like these specific ones. They're like—enhancements. Shaperate calls it enchantment, but that's superstition. Smiths call it 'a heavily guarded secret that we'll murder you for sharing with outsiders, Dagna,' but that's backwards thinking."

Sera laughs. "You're cute, Widdle."

"These ones," Dagna says, pointing at Sera's arm, "redirect. You can see her standing there with your eyes, and anyone looking out through an actual window can see her, but viewing screens and sensors see space. One side to the other, like a bypass around her. They'd have to be _very_ good to pick her up anyway. And Dorian's friends aren't exactly Qunari."

"And the other ones?"

"Break," Dagna says. "Ships have networks of sensors, like a nervous system. _You_ know that. You can disrupt it if you press the right places. Sera places them, hooks them up to Ship. Ship switches them on when we need them, uses them to get into the system for a fraction of a second so you can do whatever it is you're going to do. I mean, it's a lot more complicated than that, but people usually stop listening after a while."

"Uhhuh," the Iron Bull says.

"Alright," Sera says. "Let's get this done, get a drink. He's buying." A hand waved in the Iron Bull's general direction.

"Hey," the Iron Bull says. "Not Dorian?"

"Nope," Sera says, and doesn't offer any more explanation. "Go on, get out."

Helmet on, sealed down. 

They go.

 

 

Waiting.

Waiting's the worst part, though the Iron Bull's done plenty of it, done plenty of it recently even. It's the stillness of only one body that gets him.

On Seheron Hissrad waiting in silence as people walk by, preparing for the moment to attack; is also discussing the day's incidents with the overseer; is also eating its first meal; is also washing in preparation for sleep.

The Iron Bull is the Iron Bull, is only here, watching Dagna, watching a viewing panel that shows nothing at all.

Somewhere on the hull of another ship, Sera must be clipping herself in place, searching for the right point to place her weapons; one and another and another, moving around it.

Radio silence means one less sign of her presence for people to follow, and it's also doing the Iron Bull's head in.

 

 

"Done," Sera says, hauling herself clumsily out of her suit, "but you'd better fucking test it. There's something weird about that thing. Overcompensating."

‹‹ Testing, ›› Ship says.

Nothing.

Nothing.

Nothing.

"Rocky," Krem says, "maybe you should go get Dorian back here. He's most likely to know what's up with this crap."

"Actually, I think I am," Dagna says; looks from Krem to the Iron Bull and back again, like she's getting some of the same weird vibe the Iron Bull is but can't quite put her finger on it. "But I mean, I'm sure he's got some very interesting ideas. He seems like a man who doesn't care about the way things are meant to be done."

Rocky looks between all of them, vaguely pained. "Go get him," the Iron Bull says. "Why the shit not. The more the merrier. Go shopping for something non-explosive with the other guys while you're there. Make some socially acceptable noise."

Krem thinks it'll help—him? Probably him. Which means Krem is planning on suggesting something the Iron Bull isn't going to like. Only one thing that's likely to be.

 

 

And it is as it is, as he knew it would be:

Dorian on the threshold of the crowded common room, leaning against the bulkhead, frowning at the story.

"I'm sure there's someone's delightful little family research project at work somewhere in there," he says. 

"Oh, yes," Dagna says. "I'd love to get a look at it. But I suppose we don't really have time."

Sera gives her a look which suggests that this is Dagna's reaction to pretty much every problem she faces, exasperated and fond.

"No," she says. "Look. Bad people want to take your little toy. Your really, really creepy little toy that I worked sodding hard to track down for you, 'cause I love you."

"Not that I disagree with Dagna on principle," Dorian says, "but it does look like we'll need to make some sacrifices in the name of not dying, yes."

"Alright," Krem says, "thing is, it doesn't actually matter that much what the exact security deal is. You want to go through with this plan still, the Iron Bull knows how to fix it."

And he does.

He does.

He was remade for things like this.

He growls frustration. "Look, Krem. I disabled that shit for a damn good reason."

"Oh, yes," Skinner says. "So we could stab you when you go mad. I remember the talk."

"Not go mad," the Iron Bull says. "When I break."

"Why in the universe would you—" Dorian makes a noise of frustration which is surprisingly similar to the Iron Bull's. 

"Been breaking for years," the Iron Bull says. "Getting messier. It used to be _simple_ —" 

"For fuck's sake, sir," Stitches says. He sounds kind of tired. "You really think it was simpler when you lost an eye for Krem?"

"Yes," the Iron Bull says.

"How, exactly?"

"Guidance."

"So you didn't do it because you care too much about people," Stitches says. "Didn't get so angry about the injustice of it that you couldn't help yourself. Before you answer, I'm going to remind you I was actually there."

A hot flash of guilt. A mistake. Probably the first mistake, the first one since Hissrad unit came apart, the first since his reprogramming. And he can't regret it. The lack of regret is the second mistake. The first time lying to his makers.

Right?

The desert—

No, Hissrad says, in a dull grey room. This unit does not recall to whom it was assigned for primary programming.

Tama smiles.

"You want to kill anyone here?" Stitches asks. "Just wondering, you know. Curiosity."

"No," the Iron Bull says. "That's not the point. I can't—I don't—fuck."

But there's Dorian, Dorian's hand on his shoulder, gentle. Yeah, this is exactly why Krem wanted him here. Here it is.

"I won't say you're not dangerous," he says. "That would be to do you a disservice. But surely you see that you're not dangerous to us, not in the way you fear."

He doesn't say: you're a person.

He knows better than that. Uncertainty between them.

And because of it, the Iron Bull is comforted.

"I'm not going to demand you do anything," Dorian says.

How much does it cost him to be this soft with an audience?

"Could just kill them," Skinner says.

"There's that, of course," Dorian says. Yeah, Dorian would do it; dislikes these guys enough.

And still.

The Iron Bull takes a deep breath, and another, and another. Weighs it. Danger and hope.

"Better put my shields back while you're at it," he tells Stitches. Standing in the snow, calculating the limitations of a merely adequate external. "The way our luck goes, I'm gonna need to go over to the Venatori's damn ship. Don't think Dagna's got a suit that'll fit."

 

 

I am a weapon.

Repeat it.

The Iron Bull is very good at cooperating. Flip the switch to go away from the pain of adjustment and reconnection. Maintenance is maintenance. It is routine.

Hissrad, the last part of Hissrad, is still in the chair.

Somebody says:

Reconfiguration thirty percent complete. Hold.

He breathes.

"Is he—" Dorian says. A pause. "There?"

Not Hissrad, but the Iron Bull. Not reconfiguration. 

Repair.

Stitches bends over him, presses fingers to the side of his neck, the thrum of a scanner against his skin to find the exact alignment of the implant there. The sting of broken skin, barely blunted by a very low dose of sedatives.

"Yes," he says, to Dorian but looking down into the Iron Bull's face. "Pretty sure this is just him coping."

"Unnerving," Dorian says, but his fingers brush briefly against the back of the Iron Bull's hand. "You're going to look different, aren't you?"

He is. In details. He's going to look like what he is. Subtle distinctions, the body's organic and unremarkable form made strange by visible, distinctive implants.

"Ridiculous man," Dorian says, and the Iron Bull is too distant to examine the warmth of the words in his stomach.

"Yeah," he says, and Dorian laughs.

"Still, sir," Stitches says. "You don't want this bit to go wrong, trust me."

The Iron Bull sinks back under into Hissrad.

 

 

And it is the world, expanded.

It is to see.

He is awake.

"Shit," the Iron Bull says. "That feels—" Worse.

Better.

It does feel better. But it also feels strange. Uneasy. The edge of—what?

Blackness.

"What now?" Dorian asks. His hand is warm against the Iron Bull's.

"Got to wait for it to settle. Then talk to Ship," the Iron Bull says. "You can go get some rest."

"I'm fine," Dorian says. "I'll wait."

 

 

And blackness. Again, again, again.

But also light.

Ship shows the Iron Bull itself, data fed to him directly, no screen or filter. It knows, it knows him, recognises him. They are not kin, but distant relatives. Unfolding awareness.

Dorian is half asleep in a chair on the other side of the Dagna's work-room. He breathes deeply but not quite evenly. His pulse is slow and steady.

Stitches sterilises his tools in the next room.

Krem and Skinner talk quietly and quickly, and he shifts his focus away before he can give into the temptation to listen. A flare of irritation from Skinner, too hot to avoid feeling.

He's himself.

Something like himself.

The Iron Bull sits up.

‹‹ Stay there, ›› Ship says. ‹‹ You don't need to be at a console any more. I'll show you the problem. ››

And it does.

The vessel is too well-wired with redundant systems, beyond any ordinary limits; systems are held too inaccessible, the bulk of the ship allowing a rooting of more essential parts through its core, where a smaller vessel would require the space for living and working. 

It isn't a problem that the Iron Bull could explain in technical terms how to fix. Why would they teach a weapon that kind of crap?

But he knows what to do; knows what pieces of access codes and program overrides are relevant.

He swings himself to his feet, in spite of Ship's quiet disapproval.

"Oh," Dorian says, bleary. "You're up."

"Yeah," the Iron Bull says. "Got some shit to fix. Come on."

"There isn't exactly a rush, sir," Stitches calls from beyond the partition.

"Sure there is," the Iron Bull says. "You want to give them more time to think about how they're gonna kill us to get their toy back? Decide to push on board and kill us all?"

"Optimism," Dorian says. "How lovely."

 

 

Blackness.

The Iron Bull's breath hisses in and out, mask over his mouth and nose. He is turned to silver, the fine barrier of his shield pulled between him and the void.

Against the stars, the outlines of ships. They glitter with lights of their own along their edges, markers and signals. They lie aligned with the station, directed with precision to unseen points by traffic control.

And space is vast beyond them.

It tugs and tugs at him.

He kicks himself off the hull, an exact movement. Familiar. Propulsion to shift his trajectory, the faint hum of the thing against his back as it fires and still, fires again.

Here it is. 

A broad skillset, someone says. Convenient. It was deployed on the planet, of course, but I see that zero gravity training was included. We must only adjust—a great many eventualities—not only— 

A face looks down at him, smooth, free of vitaar. He blinks, blinks, vision swimming out of focus.

Blackness and stars, the sun on the far side of the planet, leaving them shadowed.

Breathe.

He anchors himself to the hull of the Venatori ship. A great dark grey thing, the overall form of it smoothly curved. More portholes than might be expected. The ones on the lower levels are black and silent, the upper levels barely more lit. Few people left, then. Good.

One hand in front of the other. There will be an access point for maintenance, somewhere, somewhere. The current of the ship's electric pulse thrums just on the edge of his senses, a static vibration to follow, systems well below the surface, only a hint. One of Dagna's black discs placed squarely above the line he follows, settled seamlessly into the surface of the hull.

There.

Somewhere just out of sight, Krem—

No, no, that's another time. The wrong thread.

Involuntary recall.

But recall of what?

‹‹ Ship, ›› he says. ‹‹ Suppression. ››

‹‹ Take the closest disc, ›› Ship says. ‹‹ Raise it five point six centimetres. This will allow me access to the closest entry hatch controls. You will have to provide the override yourself, via me. ››

He presses his palm flat to the hull of the ship, allows the flow of energy through his body to direct very, very specifically into one mechanism in particular.

Turns the handle. 

Emergency override, a blackout flicker of interference that releases the mechanism.

‹‹ Thanks. ››

‹‹ I thought you felt we were not worth the same courtesy as people, ›› Ship says. Silence. ‹‹ You're welcome. ››

The uneasy transition into gravity, the airlock sighing open.

Nobody beyond. Why would there be anybody so far down on an unused deck, on a ship with a skeleton crew? 

Onward and onward. One step and another. His awareness spreads. An unthinking catalogue of sounds he would not have been able to hear five hours ago, distant footsteps, the thud of a door four decks above.

I am a weapon.

Here's what they need: a console, a control panel. Doesn't even matter much for what. There's always a flaw to be found. Search.

And it's such a simple thing, in the end, to insert a little bit of code; his programming provides him with reprogramming, not a full override—how would that be able to control enough ships to be useful? But just enough, just a little thing, to create a flaw. An incorrect reroute, a delay in response. The problem is speed of reaction, redundant systems taking up the slack as soon as the primary circuits cut out. 

So slow it. Redirect it. If you want, you can siphon off a little bit of data. If you want, you can remove a little bit of evidence.

A tool for a spy.

Footsteps. Five decks above now, more and more distant.

Imagine scenarios. There is a person who knows how to move silently. There is an alarm he doesn't know he has triggered. A firefight, the whole thing discovered—

It could be salvaged. Disabling the ship now would still hinder pursuit, and he knows how to do it, could manage it in seconds. But there would be too many clues, too many chances for the Venatori to improvise while Dagna's ship worked on getting far enough from the station to gate.

His heart beats fast, an adrenaline response training can't fully control.

But this is all it is:

He finds a console, tucked in an abandoned cabin.

He introduces a flaw.

He leaves, seals up the hatch behind him. 

Blackness, space.

A flat feeling, unreal. Somehow it feels peculiar when a thing works as it should. So many unnecessary contingencies, the knowledge of everything that could have gone wrong.

Anchored, he breathes.

Instructions from Ship, this too a rapid flickering thing. Reposition these discs. A further contingency. So, and so, and so.

Here, the unspooling thread of recall—why now— 

But of course it would be now.

He stands on the hull of a ship, braced. He is out on the borders of Rialto system, the sun distant and cold. Rialto and Salle are hardly even suggestions, planets lost among stars. Lyrium smugglers. They hunt lyrium smugglers. Pin them down for the dreadnought.

Simple, Gatt says, and the Iron Bull laughs uneasily.

He is a secret weapon, unseen. Minute against a grey expanse, gun heavy against his leg. A great unwieldy thing, heavy enough to take out light ship-mounted weaponry if you know what you're doing. 

I don't like it, Krem says. Not exactly your usual line. What are they playing at?

He doesn't know— 

He doesn't remember— 

He is in Nessum. His hands are steady as he teases a disc carefully free. Ten centimetres higher, five to the right.

The stars flickering out of existence— 

It's a cruiser, coming in to dock. Repeat it. Nothing unusual. Nothing wrong. The next disc. Move.

Move.

But the vast form of a dreadnought slides silently overhead, at the same time as the light of the distant sun flashes off the suddenly-present form of a sleek Tevinter warship.

And the Iron Bull remembers it. One heartbeat the thing is absent.

Then present.

Sharp and painful, twisting. Krem tries to break free, make for their own ship, but a heavy from the smuggler ship has hold of him, has him pinned on the hull, and the Iron Bull—

Shoots the man holding Krem neatly and very quickly in the head, instead of signaling the dreadnought in the fraction of a second when it might have made a difference.

Air hissing from the man's suit. A plume of ice crystals.

The heavy impact of an explosion overhead.

Another.

Another.

‹‹ The Iron Bull, ›› Ship says, urgently.

Yes, he should get to the airlock, there's Krem kicking free, Skinner and Grim reaching out to help him—he untethers himself, moves—

‹‹ Iron Bull. You aren't responding. Confirm status. ››

‹‹ Iron Bull. ››

‹‹ Bull, ›› Dorian says.

Not his own ship. Dagna's. Dagna's. Dagna's.

He is in Nessum.

He is ten years destroyed.

He is adrift in space.

 

 

You'll get away, Tama says. Forget this, for now.

You'll get away.

A plunge into darkness. Not falling, no falling here, but twisting awkwardly, the trajectory wrong—

You'll get away.

 

 

And this is how he is lost. This is how he ceases to be, violently disconnected from the Qun by the fall of the dreadnought, by its wreckage. You almost died, sir, Stitches says, looking down at him. 

I did, he says, reaching for something that isn't there, reaching, reaching—

It is fragmentary. All of these pieces are fragmentary.

Tama— 

Vertigo. Vertigo when he tries to remember what happened, reaching for one thing and finding another, the wrong connections, fragments—

And now, in the dark—

‹‹ Bull, you fucking idiot, ›› Krem says. ‹‹ Bull. ››

The Iron Bull, free from gravity, free from all moorings, drifts. Thinks: 

Well, with my shields fucked, that'll be me gone. Two minutes or so. Bleeding, asphyxiation—

But that thought's wrong. There's Dorian. Didn't Dorian say something? Didn't Krem? 

That isn't this. Rialto is not Nessum. There is a distinction. There is a then. There is a now. Then, there was static in his ears, and it was just him and his guys, and debris, and— 

He almost died in Rialto. Then. The past tense. Adjust it, recalibrate.

He is in Nessum. Now. Dorian and Dagna and Sera. Ship.

Propulsion. He has a propulsion pack.

‹‹ That's right, ›› Dorian says. ‹‹ Come on, you idiotic man— ››

 

 

Firm hands, Skinner and Krem, suited, anchored, hauling him in.

‹‹ Way to scare us, ›› Krem says silently to him. ‹‹ Again. ››

‹‹ Hey, you know me, ›› the Iron Bull says. ‹‹ Can't help showing off. ››

 

 

"I'm fine," the Iron Bull says, for the tenth time. "Just slipped. Probably my shitty ankle."

Krem doesn't look any more convinced, any more impressed, than the other nine times.

Tension. If they've miscalculated, if one of their new buddies notices something wrong—if there was an alarm and they played it off for some reason— 

Better not to think about it. Done is done. They've made the cast.

"Bull," Krem says; uncharacteristic word choice. Uncharacteristic tone, too. Soft. Like Dorian, before. People being so fucking gentle with him.

He can't even manage to be pissed. Too torn and tangled and twisted up in his head.

Recall, no longer in fragments.

"You knew," the Iron Bull says. "You knew what happened in Rialto. What I did."

"Yeah," Krem says.

"That's what you keep not telling me when we fight."

"Yeah," Krem says. "You kinda shut down a few times when we tried to tell you. What happened out there today?"

"Could've maybe remembered at a better time," the Iron Bull says.

"Don't sweat it," Krem says. Claps a hand to his shoulder. "You're here now, aren't you? Alive?"

Alive.

Maybe.

"Sure am," he says.

Goodbye, Tama.

But he thinks she's pleased. Somewhere, she's pleased.

 

 

He finds Dorian sitting in the lounge, waiting. Wasn't part of the worried gathering waiting when the Iron Bull was pulled in, though Krem says he was there when the Iron Bull kicked off to come back—if he's going to be charitable to himself and say it _was_ to come back. Say he knew where the shit he was, what he was doing.

Right now Dorian's a bit too studied in his nonchalance; glances up to catch sight of the Iron Bull, raises an eyebrow in greeting as though nothing much is going on.

"Are we ready?" he asks.

"We're ready," the Iron Bull says. 

"Is it alright? The implants, I mean. It must feel strange."

"Not stranger than shutting them off."

A bit stranger, actually. He never lost the habit of reaching for them, and then catching himself; now he reaches and hesitates before he remembers they're back. It's a quick process, for anyone else. But his reaction speed isn't up to scratch, for him.

Dorian reaches for him, pulls him down to sit. 

The Iron Bull sighs, stretches out his legs.

"Hey, Dorian. Do you think it matters? If you're synthetic or not?"

"What's brought this on?" Dorian asks, frowns. "Of course it matters. It's a question of, of, well, of personal integrity. If _he_ replaced me, what did he do to my memories? I know what he wanted to do, and it clearly didn't work if he tried, but—" He shrugs, looks away. Just for a moment.

"Not about whether you're a person or not?"

"I—I'm not sure any more, I suppose."

"Why?"

Dorian leans against him, just a bit. He's not usually so affectionate. I don't trust you, over and over again; leaving after sex, pushing at the Iron Bull's buttons outside the bedroom, tipping the balance of power any way he can.

But didn't he take good care of the Iron Bull, when the Iron Bull submitted to him?

Wasn't he kind in his way, when they talked in the dark?

"I _suppose_ , as ludicrous as you are, I've come to see you as—well—a great deal more of the sum of your parts. And that has me wondering."

"But my parts are pretty good, right?" the Iron Bull says, on reflex.

Dorian laughs, and bites down on it, like he's been caught out.

"I'm never going to sleep with you again," he says. "I detest you."

But he does turn his face up for a kiss.

"I do think you're a person," he says when they part, in kind of a rush. "Maybe not a Qunari, exactly. But—real. Good. You care a great deal for your team. You may be a better person than I am, regardless of anything else. A better being, if you're going to argue _person_."

Complete honesty.

"I remembered," the Iron Bull says. "I couldn't remember what happened, when I got cut off from the Qun. Didn't remember until I was out there, today."

"What did happen?" Dorian asks, very carefully.

"Cared too much, I guess," the Iron Bull says. "Funny. Figured they must've just decided I was no good, not worth the resources to fix. But it was me. I did it. Guess I don't really know what that means."

"No," Dorian says. "You know, I think. Take your time."

Ship, addressing the Iron Bull alone, seconds the sentiment.

 

 

It is a complex thing, Tama says.

Said. Tama said.

It is a complex thing, to create an entity of this kind. It is a thing? Perhaps. But perhaps this oversimplification does both you and it a disservice.

And she was, Hissrad thought, amused.

Goodbye.

Goodbye.

And it's done. 

And he _is._ He always was.

Yes, he knows. Knows why Tama wanted him to escape. Why Krem wanted him to live. Why Dorian—

But he doesn't know what it means.

 

 

"Last call for souvenirs, then," Dagna says. "We've got clearance to launch in half an hour, they should see it on the schedule. If they miss it, then we're good anyway, right?"

"They're not going to miss it," Dorian says. "Imagine. They'd have to exile themselves in shame, and where would their nationalism get them then?"

 

 

So: does it matter?

‹‹ If you can ask yourself that question, ›› Ship says, ‹‹ why would it matter? To have the capacity to both ask and truly care about the answer is an indication that you exist as a person. ››

‹‹ I know, ›› the Iron Bull says.

‹‹ Of course you know. ››

"Your ship," Dorian says to Dagna, "is going to start a revolution one day."

 

"Maybe there needs to be one, then," Dagna says. "People just don't _see_ things, you know."

"No," Sera says. "We've talked about this, Widdle. Ship. No shitting revolution, alright? You start off with the knobs who deserve it and then sooner or later it's all, behead him, he looked at me funny. Let's just make little things explode instead."

"An advanced political analysis," Dorian says.

"Alright," Sera says. "No need to be a tosser. Putting on the voice and everything."

"I didn't say you were wrong," Dorian points out.

No revolutionary, Dorian Pavus. But a doubter. And maybe that's alright.

 

 

And what happens next?

The slow shudder of the ship pulling free of the station, making its way between the stretching shadows of greater vessels as the sun clears the rim of the world. 

Dorian, thoughtful and quiet, lies back on a sofa, eyes turned to the grey ceiling as though it could show him the stars.

"You learnt some more things about yourself today than you've told me, I think," he says. "You'll have to share the rest of it one day."

And the Iron Bull will. One day.

"Sure," he says. Comes to sit, Dorian's toes pressing in under his thigh. The Iron Bull puts a hand on his knee, studied in its casualness, like they haven't spent all this time playing games.

Like an offering.

Like:

Maybe we could try something new. Maybe I could tell you my secrets. Maybe you could want to tell me yours. Tell me about fucking your enemies, tell me about the people you admired who betrayed you, tell me about the ones who didn't.

Dorian sighs.

But he's smiling, just a little bit.

So maybe they can. Maybe they can do all of that, one of these days.

"Time soon," the Iron Bull says. "Ship's got the overrides. You want to go up to see what's happening?"

"I have to admit that I don't," Dorian says. "What difference will it make? We've set our course."

"Alright," the Iron Bull says, and leans back, horns to the wall.

Closes his eyes.

And waits.


End file.
